Background: The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) systematically evaluates the understandability and actionability of patient education materials. This study aimed to develop a Japanese version of PEMAT and verify its reliability and validity.
Methods: After assessing content validation, experts scored healthcare-related leaflets and videos according to PEMAT to verify inter-rater reliability. In validation testing with laypeople, the high-scoring material group (n = 800) was presented with materials that received high ratings on PEMAT, and the low-scoring material group (n = 799) with materials that received low ratings. Both groups responded to the understandability and actionability of the materials and perceived self-efficacy for the recommended actions.
Results: The Japanese version of PEMAT showed strong inter-rater reliability (PEMAT-P: % agreement = 87.3, Gwet's AC1 = 0.83. PEMAT-A/V: % agreement = 85.7, Gwet's AC1 = 0.80). The high-scoring material group had significantly higher scores for understandability and actionability than the low-scoring material group (PEMAT-P: understandability 6.53 vs. 5.96, p < 0.001; actionability 6.04 vs. 5.49, p < 0.001; PEMAT-A/V: understandability 7.65 vs. 6.76, p < 0.001; actionability 7.40 vs. 6.36, p < 0.001). Perceived self-efficacy increased more in the high-scoring material group than in the low-scoring material group.
Conclusions: Our study showed that materials rated highly on Japanese version of PEMAT were also easy for laypeople to understand and action.
Keywords: assessment; education materials; health communication; health literacy; measurement; patient education; readability.