Evaluating the quality and equity of patient hospital discharge instructions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Written discharge instructions improve patient understanding and self-management after hospitalization. While a small number of studies have evaluated the quality of hospital discharge instructions, none have focused on patients with a non-English language preference (NELP) or looked for potential disparities. Our goal was to compare the quality of patient discharge instructions between those with English language preference and NELP, including whether instructions were in the patient's preferred language, included all content domains recommended by professional groups, and followed best practices for health literacy.

Methods

We analyzed 200 discharge records from inpatient adult medicine discharges at one hospital across a range of diagnoses using case matching b

SUBMITTER: Austad K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11844009 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature