AN ANALYSIS OF THE READING LEVELS AND COMPREHENSION OF A GROUP OF SUBJECTS RECEIVING AN INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT.
Contributors: University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 180
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Informed consent is a complex process requiring attention to detail, yet is clear, comprehensive, and at a level of presentation individualized to that person. The intended recipient of the document must offer complete, detailed, specific, and in-depth information.

The purposes of the study were to compare the reading level of individual subjects to the readability of an intended informed consent document, and to evaluate the subjects' comprehension of health care terminology taken directly from the document. The problems evaluated in this study were delineated by six research questions.

Eighty subjects participating in a health screening fair who were at least 18 years of age and full-time employees of the City of Birmingham created the convenience sample. Three pilot studies were conducted prior to the actual data collection. Age, school grade completion, and department in which employed was asked of each subject. Each participant completed the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-R) to evaluate school grade equivalency reading level. The subjects answered six questions which asked for definitions of health care terms used in the informed consent document. The readability of the document was evaluated using the SMOG, FOG, and Flesch Reading Ease formulae. Item level difficulty was evaluated for each item; questions were statistically correlated to the variables of age, school grade completion, and gender.

Reported grade completion ranged from grade 5 to grade 14. Of the 80 subjects, 58% reported completing grade 12 (72.5%). The readability of the informed consent document was found to range between grades 12 and 14 reading equivalency. The median reading score was grade 6, with a mode of grade 3 $(n = 13).$ Comprehension scores ranged from no response correct $(n = 4)$ to all six responses correct $(n = 15).$ Two questions were answered correctly by 11 subjects, 14 had three correct responses, and 15 had four correct responses. An analysis of variance was computed between comprehension scores and school grade completion, and demonstrated a statistically significant finding $(p = .0061).$ Analysis of variance between comprehension scores and assessed reading level was also statistically significant $(p =.0011).$ Recommendations for further nursing research were offered to evaluate the influences of age, gender, region, presentation and comprehension on informed consent.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-04, Section: B, page: 1380.

Thesis (D.S.N.)--UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM, 1993.

School code: 0005.