Evaluating the impact of easy-to-understand patient letters after discharge on patients' health literacy: a randomized controlled study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

More than half of the German population has considerable difficulties in understanding health information, reflecting limited health literacy, which is associated with poorer health outcomes. Personalized, automatically generated, easy-to-understand discharge letters (patient letters) are designed to improve patients' comprehension of medical information after hospital discharge. This study investigated whether these letters improve health literacy in cardiologic patients and explored their perceptions.

Methods

This randomized controlled study included 738 patients discharged from a heart center in Dresden, Germany. The control group (CG; n = 375) received a conventional discharge letter only, whereas the intervention group (IG; n = 363) additionally received a so

SUBMITTER: Riemenschneider H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12522859 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature