As part of my forthcoming research I am bound by ethical procedures to ensure that potential Participants provide informed consent before taking part in any of the 3 studies. I have been fully passed by the relevant Ethical boards for my area, having produced various “Participant Information” documents and Consent Forms for sctutiny.
However, as part of another arm of my work (looking at Inherent/Elective Hand Hygiene Behaviour) I have recently been looking at “Readability” as a concept; specifically the Flesch-Kincaid scale (using a tool anyone can access on Microsoft Word). Here, the level of “Readability” of any given text is analysed and given a rating based on the US Grade School system, which can then be translated into chronological years e.g. Grade 6 = 11 to 12 years.
It is through this research that I found that whilst a lot of literature has been published about enhancing the “readability” of Patient information (e.g. medical leaflets), there seems little literature regarding the information which is provided to non-patient research Participants… Thus, whilst being passed by the relevant Ethical boards assures that research should do no harm to the Participant, whether an average person could fully understand the information provided appears not to have generated a “standardised” solution. In regard to Patients, the recommendation is to aim for a reading age of 11-12 years, however there is no such recommendation for research Participants. Now of course this could be due to the clear fact that all studies are different, thus all study Participants will potentially have different expected levels of comprehension….but it is still therefore hard to classify what exactly writing for the “lay” individual entails on a scale bases…..
exploringhandhygiene 