IS THE READABILITY OF INFORMED CONSENT FORMS COMMONLY USED IN ORTHOPAEDICS AND TRAUMATOLOGY DEPARTMENTS IN TERTIARY HOSPITALS SUFFICIENT ?

OBJECTIVE: Informed consent forms are almost a contract between the patient and his/her physician before surgery. Consent forms should be readable and understandable by the patient. The level of readability is important for understandability of all texts.In this study, we investigated the readability level of orthopaedic surgical consent forms obtained in a tertiary care hospital. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The number of words, syllables, letters and characters in 28 consent forms used before orthopedic surgery in a tertiary medical faculty hospital were determined. Readability scores were determined with Ateşman and Bezirci-Yılmaz formulae. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 26.0 package programme. RESULTS: RS=51.35 ± 4.62 according to Ateşman scale and RS= 11.16 ± 1.81 according to Bezirci-Yılmaz scale. According to Ateşman scale, 11-12 years of high school level education is required for the readability of consents, while according to Bezirci-Yılmaz scale, secondary (high school) level education is required. CONCLUSIONS: It was determined that orthopedic surgery consent forms used in tertiary hospitals required high school education level knowledge. We recommend that these consent forms be simplified to the level that requires approximately 6 years of education, which is the average number of years of education in Turkey.