Misinformed Consent

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Misinformed Consent

Wed Mar 6,12:11 PM ET

(HealthScoutNews) -- The principle of informed consent means that, as a

patient, you understand the nature of the medical care you're going to

receive and accept the risks involved.

That's the principle. In practice, some of those " informed consent "

forms are as hard to understand as an insurance policy.

The University of Minnesota reviewed some of the consent forms and

compared them to other writing using the Fry scale. The higher the

score, the harder something is to understand. Here's what researchers

reported in the American Journal of Medical Sciences:

* The average Ann Landers column has a Fry score of 7.67, which

means that 75 percent of the population can understand it.

* Reader's Digest has a score of 9.95, and can be easily understood

by 69 percent of the population.

* But the informed consent forms, the ones that you bet your life

on, had a score of 15.03. That means only about 37 percent of the

people reading them could understand what they were all about.