When families are coping with the emotional stress and uncertainty associated with caring for those in hospice, a University of Wisconsin study found the hospice literature meant to be informative is written at a reading level that is too advanced to be effective.

Associate professor of nursing Karen Kehl said caretakers, on average, receive 2.5 documents about hospice care and how to cope with sickness in the family. Some receive as many as seven.

Kehl said this method of educating families on important warning signs and coping strategies is impractical and confusing.

“When you think about having to go through seven different documents at 3 a.m. when your [patient] is having trouble breathing is not a very acceptable way to be doing this,” Kehl said.

Her study, conducted with an Eckburg Research Grant from the School of Nursing, involved contacting 400 hospices of the nearly 3,000 from around the country.

She said 170 hospice caretakers respond by sending in the materials they had received to help prepare for the death and studied the content of the materials.

Using four different measures of readability, Kehl said most people who stand to benefit from the materials are unable to understand them due to extensive usage of medical terminology.

Nurses could help bridge the divide between the medical and common language being spoken by more thorough explanation, she said.

Kehl also said she hoped to someday see technology-based intervention or more interactive programs, such as a phone app, which would make reading level less important.

Mary Weeks, associate student service coordinator for the School of Medicine and Public Health, said Kehl was allotted 75 percent of her time to conduct her research as a part of an award for junior faculty within the university.

Weeks added Kehl is the third UW official in the School of Nursing to win the grant, though most recipients are in the School of Public Health.

She also said the results of Kehl’s research hold vast potential for practical benefits in health treatment fields.

“The goal is to translate the findings to benefit public health,” Weeks said. “It’s a great finding to improve the quality of the end of life for the patients and their families.”