University of Pennsylvania, 240 S. 40th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
J Dent Educ. 2009 Dec;73(12):1394-400.
The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study is to describe and analyze adult patients' understanding of informed consent, using the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine's consent form. Randomly sampled, anonymous patients at the school's clinic were asked to read the form and highlight any statements they found to be confusing, while also rating the form as "easy," "needing minor changes," or "needing major changes." This survey tested the hypothesis that the reading level of the form exceeds that of the average patient and thus, as education level increased, so would comprehensibility while the number of confusing statements would decrease. The results were analyzed for trends in gender and education level, and the statements proving most problematic to the largest number of patients were identified and analyzed. Contrary to the hypothesis, the most highly educated patients highlighted more statements, inspiring a new hypothesis that this occurred because of highly educated patients' ability to distinguish between the literal meaning of the words and their implications. Revisions were made to the identified aspects of the form, and new surveys were completed, with the result that the modifications were successful and the new hypothesis was supported.
本定性探索性研究的目的是描述和分析成年患者对知情同意的理解，使用宾夕法尼亚大学牙医学院的同意书。从该校诊所随机抽取的匿名患者被要求阅读该表格，并突出显示他们认为任何混淆的陈述，同时还将该表格评为“简单”、“需要较小的更改”或“需要较大的更改”。这项调查测试了这样一个假设，即表格的阅读水平超过了普通患者的水平，因此随着教育水平的提高，理解能力会提高，而混淆的陈述数量会减少。分析了性别和教育水平的趋势，确定并分析了对大多数患者来说最成问题的陈述。与假设相反，受教育程度最高的患者突出显示了更多的陈述，这激发了一个新的假设，即这是因为受过高等教育的患者能够区分文字的字面意思及其含义。对表格的相关方面进行了修订，并完成了新的调查，结果表明这些修改是成功的，并且新的假设得到了支持。
