The Appropriateness of Language Found in Research Consent Form Templates: A Computational Linguistic Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

To facilitate informed consent, consent forms should use language below the grade eight level. Research Ethics Boards (REBs) provide consent form templates to facilitate this goal. Templates with inappropriate language could promote consent forms that participants find difficult to understand. However, a linguistic analysis of templates is lacking.

Methods

We reviewed the websites of 124 REBs for their templates. These included English language medical school REBs in Australia/New Zealand (n = 23), Canada (n = 14), South Africa (n = 8), the United Kingdom (n = 34), and a geographically-stratified sample from the United States (n = 45). Template language was analyzed using Coh-Metrix linguistic software (v.3.0, Memphis, USA). We evaluated the proportion of REBs wit

SUBMITTER: Villafranca A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5287453 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature