Reference no: EM131818067

"Improving The Readability and Processability of a Pediatric Informed Consent Document," published in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in 2005, describes a study in which existing parental consent forms were modified to conform with federal guidelines that take into account that many Americans have poor literacy skills. Parents of children scheduled for minor elective surgical procedures were randomly (and evenly) assigned to receive information about a clinical study via the standard or the modified form. The proportion who described the form as "very clear" was 0.64 for the standard form, 0.77 for the modified form. The proportion who described the form as "easy to read" was 0.65 for the standard form, 0.86 for the modified form.6 Sketch bar graphs, first for comparing proportions describing the form as "very clear" for standard versus modified forms, then for comparing proportions describing the form as "easy to read" for standard versus modified forms, and tell which of the two shows a more dramatic difference between standard and modified.