Development of an Empowering Language Assessment Tool for Type 1 Diabetes

Abstract

Introduction: This brief report describes the early development of an Empowering Language Assessment Tool (T1D-ELAT) for patient education materials (PEMs) designed for people with type 1 diabetes (T1D), consisting of a checklist to assess the frequency of disempowering language.

Methods: The authors followed professional society guidelines to develop a checklist to quantify the use of disempowering words and phrases. We determined inclusion and exclusion criteria and grouped checklist terms into functional categories. We also collected descriptive characteristics about each PEM, such as publication date, authorship, and country of origin, and created a codebook defining these terms and descriptive characteristics.

Results: The authors tested the checklist in two rounds and added nine term variations as a result. We removed the imperative can/can’t/cannot during testing because it was not consistently used as an imperative.

Discussion: Pilot testing the checklist informed revisions to the checklist and study protocol. Future phases of this research project will also explore the context in which disempowering terms are used in these materials.