Readability Challenges in Ophthalmology Consent Forms: A Comprehensive Assessment Using the Ateşman Formula

This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the linguistic and structural complexity of 45 informed consent forms published by the Turkish Ophthalmological Association. The Ateşman readability formula developed for Turkish was used to determine the readability level of the texts. In addition, linguistic metrics such as word count, syllable count, sentence count, character count, average word count per sentence, average syllable count per word, and medical term ratio were calculated. The results of the analysis revealed that the consent forms generally had low readability levels. The scores obtained according to the Ateşman readability formula ranged from 24.12 to 53.7, indicating that most of the texts were in the “difficult” (30-49 points) or “very difficult” (0-29 points) readability categories. This suggests that the forms generally require a high school, undergraduate or higher (academic/specialized) level of education to be understood. Linguistic factors contributing to low readability were identified. The density of medical terms in the forms was found to be high, ranging from 4.82% to 16.8%. The average number of words per sentence in the analyzed forms ranged from 13.88 to 26.83, well above the average of 9-10 words recommended for standard Turkish texts. The average number of syllables per word ranged from 2.67 to 3.19, higher than the 2.6-2.8 syllables considered typical for Turkish, reflecting the dominance of technical and medical vocabulary. In conclusion, informed consent forms are “difficult” or “very difficult” texts for the general readership due to their high density of medical terms and complex sentence structures