Relationships among educational material readability, client literacy, perceived beneficence, and perceived quality.

Illiteracy remains a pervasive problem that compromises quality health care, limits understanding of health information, and potentially leads to poor health outcomes. This study demonstrated that participants' measured reading level was significantly lower than both their stated years of education and readability of an educational pamphlet. A positive relationship was identified between measured reading level and pamphlet helpfulness (client-perceived beneficence). Participants perceived care quality as good to very good. Quality client education requires use of either educational materials appropriate for the measured reading level of clients or alternatives to written material.