Assessing the Readability in Medical Research Papers
Main Article Content
Abstract
Background: The objective of this study was to investigate which medical specialties write the most readable articles and categorize what level of education that is required to understand the articles.
Methods: This study analyzed articles written by 38 medical specialties, represented by individual reports of 10 articles published after January 2021. The reports consisted of interventional studies from journals specific to each specialty identified by Journal Citation Reports, and a search string was developed and searched in PubMed. Characteristics such as the number of title characters, number of authors, and words in the introduction and discussion paragraphs were analyzed. Readability was measured by Lix score and Flesch Kincaid Grade Level. Subgroup analyses were conducted for popular vs. unpopular specialties, surgery vs. internal medicine vs. other specialties, and specialties with vs. without patient contact.
Results: A total of 379 articles were included. The introduction paragraph had a median Lix score of 68 and a Flesch Kincaid Grade Level of 17. The discussion paragraph had a median Lix score of 64 and a Flesch Kincaid Grade Level of 16. Specialties that were popular or with patient contact wrote articles that were more difficult to read than their counterparts, as did internal medicine compared with surgery and other specialties.
Conclusion: Readability was estimated as difficult across all medical specialties. Internal medicine wrote papers that were more difficult to read compared with surgery and other specialties. The same was applicable for specialties with patient contact and popular specialties compared with their counterparts. There is a need to make papers more readable across all specialties.
Article Details
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