Dear Susan, 

This is an area many of us in health literacy work and all of us in the Clear Language Group have been working on for years. It's a huge challenge for literacy reasons, of course, but also because the concepts are foreign to many people even when spoken. 

One of my colleagues, Wendy Mettger, co-founder of our Clear Language Group (http://clearlanguagegroup.com), along with a team of other qualified and dedicated professionals worked to create guidelines for simplifying informed consent forms for the National Cancer Institute. See http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/understanding/simplification-of-informed-consent-docs. 

These guidelines are very useful and can be used in other areas of research as well. They can also provide you with some "ammunition" when working to convince your IRB and others that consent can be done in plain language and is endorsed by the federal government. 

Best wishes, Susan! 

Audrey Riffenburgh, M.A., President
Plain Language Works (formerly Riffenburgh & Associates)
Specialists in Health Literacy & Plain Language since 1994
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 
Phone: (505) 345-1107   E-mail: ar at plainlanguageworks.com

Founding Member, The Clear Language Group, www.clearlanguagegroup.com
Co-founder, Health Literacy Institute, www.healthliteracyinstitute.net
Ph.D. Student in Health Communication, Univ. of New Mexico

  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Susan J. Slade 
  To: healthliteracy at nifl.gov 
  Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 6:34 AM
  Subject: [HealthLiteracy 1925] Informed Consent for a Scientific Study



  Dear Colleagues,

  Participation of individual subjects in a research study requires informed
  consent.  How have others handled literacy for informed consent with
  individual subjects?  What reading level is your informed consent written
  at?  Do you use pictures to aid in literacy?

  Susan Slade
  Director
  Medical Home Unit
  219 ESP Corning Tower
  New York State Department of Health
  Albany, NY 12237-0618
  phone:  (518) 474-2001
  fax:       (518) 474-3914


  IMPORTANT NOTICE:  This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential or sensitive information which is, or may be, legally privileged or otherwise protected by law from further disclosure.  It is intended only for the addressee.  If you received this in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, please do not distribute, copy or use it or any attachments.  Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this from your system. Thank you for your cooperation.

  ----------------------------------------------------
  National Institute for Literacy
  Health and Literacy mailing list
  HealthLiteracy at nifl.gov
  To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/healthliteracy
  Email delivered to ar at plainlanguageworks.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/healthliteracy/attachments/20080421/0dbc10d8/attachment.html