Nursing: Patient Education & Consumer Health

Readability tools

Keep in mind that all tools have limitations and your judgment is required.

• Assessing readability using Flesch-Kincaid - Jewish General Hospital Patient Education Network (from p. 11 How to create effective written patient learning materials)
• SMOG - Free online readability tool (paste in your text to generate a score)
  • About SMOG
  • How to use SMOG
• Gunning-Fog Index - Free online readability tool (paste in your text to generate a score)
  • About the Gunning-Fog index
• Scolarius - Free online readability tool for French language text

Plain language dictionaries & thesauri

Use these to find plain language words to replace jargon.

• Plain language medical dictionary
  This English dictionary was developed by the University of Michigan Taubman Health Sciences Library as part of the Michigan Health Literacy Awareness project.
• CLAD thesaurus (PDF)
  "A thesaurus of about 600 common words and phrases that have shorter, more familiar alternatives.
• Lexique de mots alternatifs
  This French dictionary was developed by the Réseau Québécois des Etablissements Promoteurs de Santé, with the collaboration of the team of Promotion de la santé du Centre hospitalier universitaire de Montréal (CHUM).