At Servier, we believe that:
We think improving health literacy is essential. To achieve this goal, we have to communicate in everyday language.
Health literacy is the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.
Health literacy depends on different factors:
Low health literacy affects people’s ability to:
Health literacy includes numeracy skills. For example, calculating cholesterol and blood sugar levels, measuring medications, and understanding nutritional labels, all require some maths skills.
Plain language is an important tool for making written and oral information easier to understand. It should allow users to understand the first time they read or hear it. Lay documents should achieve 3 objectives:
To ensure our documents are readable, we use the Flesch-Kincaid readability tests. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade presents a score as a U.S. grade level. We have made a commitment that documents intended for patients should be written with 8th grade students in mind. The 8th grade corresponds to eight years of formal schooling (13-14 years old).
For example, texts from this website are around the 8th grade.
Since 2006 in Europe, our package leaflet has reflected the results of consultations with target patient groups to ensure that it is legible, clear and easy to use.
We comply with the European Commission Guidelines on Readability.
Before joining a study, participants must give their consent. The ICF is a written document that aims to inform a participant about the purpose, procedures, potential benefits and risks of the studies. This document should be written in simple language understandable to the participants.
At the end of the study, we may write a lay summary of the clinical study report intended for the general public. The lay summary is a summary of the report written in plain language.
See also:
> Health Literacy – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Medical illustrations to illustrate your publications and powerpoints presentations
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