Designing and evaluating parent educational materials.

Families of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are continually seeking information about their infant. Communicating with and providing education to parents is a crucial focus for nurses, who are often challenged to provide families with culturally sensitive health information they can read, understand, and act on when necessary. Understanding the literacy level of specific parent populations allows healthcare providers to develop and test written educational materials for readability and suitability and to assure that the materials used are targeted at parents' specific learning needs. This article presents pragmatic suggestions for evaluating current written materials and developing new NICU parent-education materials with lower readability levels. Additionally, the article identifies strategies to honor the cultural needs of families and actively involve families in the development of parent-education materials.