Elsevier

The Breast

Volume 50, April 2020, Pages 81-84
The Breast

Short communication
Evaluation of existing patient educational materials and development of a brochure for women with dense breasts

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.breast.2020.02.001Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Readability of 22 existing breast density educational materials was assessed.

  • Guided by patient advocates, we developed a print breast density educational brochure.

  • Brochure acceptability was assessed in focus groups and an online discussion group.

  • Existing educational materials had low readability.

  • Our brochure had high readability and can be used to support women with dense breasts.

Abstract

Objectives

In this pilot study, we developed and assessed acceptability of a brochure for women with dense breasts.

Material and methods

We measured Flesch-Kincaid Readability of 22 existing breast density educational materials. We then developed a brochure and tested it in two populations of women: 44 safety net hospital patients and 13 Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium stakeholders.

Results

Average grade score of existing materials was 10.0 (range: 5.5–12.7). Our brochure had a grade score of 5.9, and patients reported it was easy to understand.

Conclusion

Our plain language brochure could improve patient understanding following mandatory dense breast notification.

Keywords

Breast density
Policy
Mammography
Patient education

Cited by (0)

1

Present address: Department of Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue New York, NY 10065, USA.