Redesigning Consent Forms and Processes for Health Research

Health researchers, especially those in academics fields, are often frustrated by their inability to recruit significant numbers of research participants and the high costs associated with obtaining samples from those patients. Several factors have contributed to low participation rates, including short decision times, poorly designed consent forms and informational messages, and technical jargon that is beyond patient understanding. The challenge facing researchers and technical communicators involved with medical research is to overcome these obstacles while maintaining principles of informed consent for participants. This presentation follows a case history of the development of one set of multimodal informational tools designed to help researchers recruit and inform patients.