Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionability

Objective: to evaluate articles on depression published in popular magazines with respect to understandability, reliability, and actionability. To determine whether these articles can educate patients. To investigate whether the Clear Communication Index (CCI), developed to assess the quality of pat...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lies Sercu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2022-12-01
Series:PEC Innovation
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277262822200084X
_version_ 1811184627699679232
author Lies Sercu
author_facet Lies Sercu
author_sort Lies Sercu
collection DOAJ
description Objective: to evaluate articles on depression published in popular magazines with respect to understandability, reliability, and actionability. To determine whether these articles can educate patients. To investigate whether the Clear Communication Index (CCI), developed to assess the quality of patient education materials produced by the medical sector, can be used to evaluate articles published in popular magazines. Methods: The sample consists of 81 articles from 24 different Flemish and Dutch popular magazines. The articles were evaluated using the CCI. Correlational and t-test analyses were performed on the data. Results: No more than one-fifth of all articles were found to be of quality. Significant positive correlations were found between actionability, reliability, and understandability. No significant differences were found between health magazines and other more generally oriented magazines. Conclusion: Overall, our findings demonstrate the relative lack of power as patient educational materials of articles on depression published in popular magazines for people with low or average mental health literacy levels. Innovation: Using the Clear Communication Index, the quality of Dutch medium popular magazine articles on depression are analyzed. The study design allowed for the comparison of different types of magazines. Health magazines do no score better than generally-focused magazines.
first_indexed 2024-04-11T13:15:34Z
format Article
id doaj.art-1d551fada3744c1ba8fffb7888812272
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2772-6282
language English
last_indexed 2024-04-11T13:15:34Z
publishDate 2022-12-01
publisher Elsevier
record_format Article
series PEC Innovation
spelling doaj.art-1d551fada3744c1ba8fffb78888122722022-12-22T04:22:24ZengElsevierPEC Innovation2772-62822022-12-011100099Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionabilityLies Sercu0Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, PO BOX 3308, 3000 Leuven, BelgiumObjective: to evaluate articles on depression published in popular magazines with respect to understandability, reliability, and actionability. To determine whether these articles can educate patients. To investigate whether the Clear Communication Index (CCI), developed to assess the quality of patient education materials produced by the medical sector, can be used to evaluate articles published in popular magazines. Methods: The sample consists of 81 articles from 24 different Flemish and Dutch popular magazines. The articles were evaluated using the CCI. Correlational and t-test analyses were performed on the data. Results: No more than one-fifth of all articles were found to be of quality. Significant positive correlations were found between actionability, reliability, and understandability. No significant differences were found between health magazines and other more generally oriented magazines. Conclusion: Overall, our findings demonstrate the relative lack of power as patient educational materials of articles on depression published in popular magazines for people with low or average mental health literacy levels. Innovation: Using the Clear Communication Index, the quality of Dutch medium popular magazine articles on depression are analyzed. The study design allowed for the comparison of different types of magazines. Health magazines do no score better than generally-focused magazines.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277262822200084XDepressionMediaPopular magazinesUnderstandabilityReliabilityActionability
spellingShingle Lies Sercu
Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionability
PEC Innovation
Depression
Media
Popular magazines
Understandability
Reliability
Actionability
title Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionability
title_full Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionability
title_fullStr Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionability
title_full_unstemmed Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionability
title_short Can popular magazines educate people with depression? An investigation of articles' understandability, reliability, and actionability
title_sort can popular magazines educate people with depression an investigation of articles understandability reliability and actionability
topic Depression
Media
Popular magazines
Understandability
Reliability
Actionability
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277262822200084X
work_keys_str_mv AT liessercu canpopularmagazineseducatepeoplewithdepressionaninvestigationofarticlesunderstandabilityreliabilityandactionability