Patient literacy and the readability of smoking education literature.

This study was designed to determine if primary care clinic patients read at a level congruent to the reading grade level of available smoking literature. Reading estimates of smoking education literature (N = 49) ranged from grade 3 to college level (median = 9.5). Reading skills of 258 smoking patients were estimated by reported years of schooling (median = 10), and by scores on the Wide-Range Achievement Test (median = 6). A serious disparity existed between the reading estimates of smoking education literature and the literacy skills of patients in our sample.