Bibliographic Details
| Title: |
Evaluating the quality and equity of patient hospital discharge instructions |
| Authors: |
Kirsten Austad, Joo Hyun Lee, Howard Lanney, Victoria Oliva Rapoport, Rebecca Wornhoff, Katherine McDaniel, Lindsay Li-Garrison, Brian W. Jack |
| Source: |
BMC Health Services Research, Vol 25, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2025) |
| Publisher Information: |
BMC, 2025. |
| Publication Year: |
2025 |
| Collection: |
LCC:Public aspects of medicine |
| Subject Terms: |
Limited english proficiency, Non-English language preference, Transitions of care, Hospital discharge, Patient education, Public aspects of medicine, RA1-1270 |
| More Details: |
Abstract Background Written discharge instructions improve patient understanding and self-management after hospitalization. While a small number of studies have evaluated the quality of hospital discharge instructions, none have focused on patients with a non-English language preference (NELP) or looked for potential disparities. Our goal was to compare the quality of patient discharge instructions between those with English language preference and NELP, including whether instructions were in the patient’s preferred language, included all content domains recommended by professional groups, and followed best practices for health literacy. Methods We analyzed 200 discharge records from inpatient adult medicine discharges at one hospital across a range of diagnoses using case matching by diagnosis and age to construct an English and NELP cohort (each n = 100). We assessed the percentage of discharge instructions written in the patient’s preferred language, measured word count, and calculated readability scores. Lastly, two individual raters used a scale—the Quality of Discharge Instructions-Inpatient (QDI-I) scale—to rate them across six domains of content quality. Results Only 8% of patients with NELP received discharge instructions in their preferred language compared to 100% in the English cohort (p |
| Document Type: |
article |
| File Description: |
electronic resource |
| Language: |
English |
| ISSN: |
1472-6963 |
| Relation: |
https://doaj.org/toc/1472-6963 |
| DOI: |
10.1186/s12913-025-12410-8 |
| Access URL: |
https://doaj.org/article/d775343413d34972b16c4338ec9e68dd |
| Accession Number: |
edsdoj.775343413d34972b16c4338ec9e68dd |
| Database: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
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