Interrater reliability of the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT).
Julia Vishnevetsky, Chasity Burrows Walters, Kay See Tan
PMID 28899713WHAT IT FOUND
PEMAT agreement varied by item, and several print and video items had lower agreement.
Readability grade levels did not clearly track PEMAT understandability or actionability scores.
Key findings
01Eight PEMAT items fell below the study's 0.81 agreement threshold.
02Fourteen of 17 raters answered the survey, and thirteen agreed or strongly agreed that the PEMAT was easy to use.
03The SMOG reading grade and PEMAT understandability or actionability scores were not clearly related.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
All materials were oncology related, so item agreement may not apply to other patient education topics. All materials came from a cancer center and were made by trained health education specialists, so scores may be higher than in routine practice. Most raters were health professionals rather than lay people, so they may not have judged the materials as a patient would. Only 30 A/V materials were evaluated, compared with 80 print materials, so video agreement results are less stable. The study measured agreement between raters and rater experience, not whether patients understood or acted on the materials.
Declared interests
The supplied metadata labels the work as NIH extramural research support. The article text does not give a conflict-of-interest statement.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume PEMAT scores replace testing with patients. The study measured agreement between raters and rater experience, not patient understanding or action.