Factors Influencing Informed Consent Preferences in Digital Health Research: Survey Study of Prospective Participants

The findings point toward new ways of evaluating informed consent communication: (1) for responsiveness to specific prospective participant populations, and (2) effectiveness at eliciting informed questions from people considering participation. We discuss how creating partnerships with prospective participants to prototype informed consent materials, specifically study procedures and risks, can be a way to identify those details before launching a study. Furthermore, future research should go beyond "readability" to explore alternate measures of evaluating consent materials, such as the likelihood that the consent material and communication procedures will elicit "informed questions" for the research team.