Patient education materials need several kinds of review. A clinically accurate handout may be hard to follow; a clear-looking page may contain an outdated instruction. Separate content verification from assessment of how the material communicates.
AHRQ's Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool, or PEMAT, evaluates understandability and actionability. It has different versions for printable and audiovisual materials. These are useful dimensions of communication, but the tool does not assess factual accuracy, completeness or readability.
Establish the purpose and version
Begin by recording the material's title, source, date or version, intended readers and use. Identify the clinical or administrative owner who can confirm the content. For an externally produced handout, distinguish its publication date from the date someone in the organization reviewed it.
A practical approval record should answer separate questions: Is this the correct information? Is it understandable? Does it explain the action? Is the available format appropriate for the intended users? Assign an owner to unresolved questions rather than treating a favorable communication score as approval of the whole document.
Use the assessment as instructed
Read the entire material and the relevant PEMAT guide before scoring. Use PEMAT-P for printable material and PEMAT-A/V for audiovisual material. Evaluate what the resource actually says; do not fill gaps using the reviewer's clinical knowledge. A nurse may know which clinic number to call, while the patient-facing page still fails to provide it.
The tool reports separate percentages for understandability and actionability. Each uses points earned divided by possible points, excluding items appropriately marked not applicable. Follow the instrument's rules for when that response is available. Do not combine the two dimensions into an invented overall certification.
Turn the result into specific changes
For a fictional appointment handout, reviewers might identify that the main purpose is clear but the required action is incomplete. A useful revision request would specify what is missing: the verified scheduling contact, the relevant timeframe or the documents to bring. “Make it simpler” gives the writer less direction.
After revising, check that the change did not introduce a clinical error or conflict with another instruction. Keep the revised version and review record together so an old file is not mistaken for the approved one.
Include the intended audience
AHRQ explicitly cautions that a high PEMAT score does not guarantee effectiveness with a particular patient population and recommends testing with patients.
A suggested feedback task is to ask readers to find and explain the next step using the material, then note where they hesitate or ask for clarification. Review the final format as it will be delivered. A video, printout and portal attachment may require separate checks.
Use readability review as one input, and plain-language editing to revise the text. Retain separate decisions for clinical approval, communication quality and any unresolved access needs.
Sources
- PEMAT and User's Guide: Introduction (accessed 2026-09-17) — AHRQ.
- PEMAT for Printable Materials: scoring instructions (accessed 2026-09-17) — AHRQ.