Journal Article

Readability of online COVID-19 health information: a comparison between four English speaking countries

Worrall, Amy P., de Barra, Eoghan, Connolly, Mary J., McNally, Cora, Thornton, Kenneth P., O’Doherty, Murray, O’Neill, Aine, McConkey, Samuel J.

2020

Overview

Background The internet is now the first line source of health information for many people worldwide. In the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic, health information is being produced, revised, updated and disseminated at an increasingly rapid rate. The general public are faced with a plethora of misinformation regarding COVID-19 and the readability of online information has an impact on their understanding of the disease. The accessibility of online healthcare information relating to COVID-19 is unknown. We sought to evaluate the readability of online information relating to COVID-19 in four English speaking regions: Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and compare readability of website source provenance and regional origin. Methods The Google® search engine was used to collate the first 20 webpage URLs for three individual searches for ‘COVID’, ‘COVID-19’, and ‘coronavirus’ from Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. The Gunning Fog Index (GFI), Flesch-Kincaid Grade (FKG) Score, Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) score were calculated to assess the readability. Results There were poor levels of readability webpages reviewed, with only 17.2% of webpages at a universally readable level. There was a significant difference in readability between the different webpages based on their information source ( p  < 0.01). Public Health organisations and Government organisations provided the most readable COVID-19 material, while digital media sources were significantly less readable. There were no significant differences in readability between regions. Conclusion Much of the general public have relied on online information during the pandemic. Information on COVID-19 should be made more readable, and those writing webpages and information tools should ensure universal accessibility is considered in their production. Governments and healthcare practitioners should have an awareness of the online sources of information available, and ensure that readability of our own productions is at a universally readable level which will increase understanding and adherence to health guidelines.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Accessibility / Biostatistics / Canada - epidemiology / Comparative analysis / Comprehension / Consumer Health Information - statistics & numerical data / Coronarvirus pandemic / Coronavirus Infections - epidemiology / Coronaviruses / COVID-19 / Digital broadcasting / Digital media / Education / English language / Environmental Health / Epidemics / Epidemiology / Health behavior / Health care / Health information / Health literacy / health promotion and society / Humans / Internet / Ireland - epidemiology / Media coverage / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / North America / Online health care information services / Pandemics / Pneumonia, Viral - epidemiology / Provenance / Public Health / Quality / Readability / Reading / Research Article / Search engines / Smog / Social networks / Statistical analysis / United Kingdom / United Kingdom - epidemiology / United States - epidemiology / Vaccine / Viral diseases / Websites