These criteria are that the leaflet is easily understandable by the target group and should have a readability of a grade 8 or equivalent [9]. The sample reported here were less literate or educated than national estimates [48] and [57] and the inclusion of such groups within the initial stages of intervention design is recommended [58]. However, the majority of print and multimedia interventions fail to report BIBW2992 on how they involved the target populations in their development [59], despite their inclusion mitigating socioeconomic differences in response to public health interventions [60]. Nonetheless, the study may have benefited

from the inclusion of more low literacy individuals. This is demonstrated by the observation that several participants had a degree level education and they contributed disproportionately to the discussion. An implication Selleck Sotrastaurin of the relatively literate sample is that the gist leaflet may not have addressed the concerns of those most in need of supplementary communication materials. Furthermore, the number of correct responses

to the comprehension questions may have been lower if a sample of individuals with lower levels of literacy had participated. This would have resulted in more rounds of testing and more changes being made to its current design. Future research should focus not only on the recruitment of low learn more literacy groups, but also on ways to promote their engagement with the research process once they have consented. For example, using lay members of the community to chair focus groups, improving research instructions so that they are easily comprehendible and ensuring participants’ continued involvement throughout the research process, are some possibilities. Small sample sizes are the norm in user-testing studies, but chance variation between individuals means that the results may be less generalisable to the

wider population. Although the methodology allows us to observe levels of comprehension, it does not consider the wider determinants of screening behaviour [2]. In addition, because of the length of the user-testing task and literacy assessments, we did not ask respondents to elaborate on their open-ended statements. As such, the data were often brief utterances rather than in-depth comments. These limitations will be addressed in our future research plans, which will test the communicative effectiveness of the leaflet [43] in larger, more generalisable populations. In conclusion, we have shown that it is possible to use FTT as a guiding framework to design gist-based CRC screening information that is comprehensible to all literacy groups. Best practice guidelines were useful supplements to this theory-driven process and they provided explicit guidance on how to address comprehension difficulties specific to low literacy groups.