Comparing Original Patient Educational Materials vs. AI-Simplified Materials to Improve Patient Comprehension and Health Literacy

Part of paid clinical trials in New York, New York.

Sponsor
Hospital for Special Surgery, New York
Study ID
NCT07505719
Status
Recruiting
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Conditions

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Health Literacy
  • Patient Comprehension
  • Patient Educational Material

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
18 Years - N/A
Healthy Volunteers
Accepted

Interventions

  • AI Simplification — OTHER
    A patient educational article will be simplified by artificial intelligence (ChatGPT 5.2) in order to improve its readability.
  • Unmodified Patient Educational Material — OTHER
    An unmodified patient educational material, written by a physician and publicly available on the institution's website will be administered to participants of the designated arm of the study.

Study Details

Poor health literacy and patient comprehension have been associated with adverse health outcomes. Patient educational materials (PEMs) are articles that are intended to assist patients in their understanding of a given medical condition. Given that the average American adult reads at the 8th grade level, the American Medical Association and the Center for Disease Control recommend PEM be written at the 6th grade level. However, literature has found the majority of PEMs to be written significantly higher than the 8th grade level. In order to improve their readability, a number of studies have displayed the effectiveness of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT to simplify the text of a given PEM. Despite the improvement in readability, the effectiveness of these simplified PEMs on improving patient comprehension of the AI augmented material has yet to be investigated. The purpose of our study is to test whether the improvement in readability found in AI-simplified PEMs corresponds to a greater understanding of the material compared to the original PEM. Understanding if AI-simplified PEM truly improves comprehension could further support this use case for AI and aid providers and healthcare organizations in improving the health literacy of their patients. This study aims to answer the following question: Do AI simplified PEMs improve the comprehension of pediatric orthopaedic conditions? Researchers will compare AI-simplified PEMs to their original, unmodified counterparts in order to see if there is any difference in post reading comprehension of the participants. Participation in the study will include: * A brief baseline survey (e.g. demographics and educational attainment) * A randomly assigned reading of either the original PEM or the AI simplified version. * A 10 question post-reading multiple choice quiz

Key Dates

Start date
Feb 13, 2026
Status verified
Apr 2026
Primary completion
May 31, 2027
Completion
May 31, 2027

Study Design

Enrollment
80 participants (estimated)
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Arms

  • Active Comparator: Original, unmodified Patient Educational Material
    This group of participants will receive a patient educational material pertaining to osteogenesis imperfecta and written by a physician without simplification by artificial intelligence.
  • Experimental: AI-Simplified Patient Educational Material
    This group will read a patient educational material pertaining to osteogenesis imperfecta that was simplified to the 6th grade reading level by artificial intelligence.

Primary Outcome Measure

Post Reading Comprehension Scores [ Time Frame: Comprehension scores will be recorded once, immediately at the completion of the post-reading comprehension quiz. ]

Central Contacts

Locations (1)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
Hospital for Special SurgeryNew YorkNew York10021
Christopher Williams, MS
[email protected]
6467146986

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