The AMA makes The Patient Page accessible to the public online. This is a good idea.
Patients can take the same material home as a reminder and to share with caregivers.
We wondered if The Patient Page would be a good resource for prenatal care providers, so we decided to evaluate the materials. We chose alcohol as a test topic because it comes up first on the public online menu and it addresses a key message in prenatal education. We started the review by checking the readability level of the text. Readability is only one of many factors known to affect comprehension, but it is a deal breaker. If the materials exceed the literacy skills of intended readers, handing it out becomes an expensive gesture.