Adaptation of informed consent for anaesthesia to plain language standard

Abstract

Introduction. The paper describes the process of editing and validating documents on the basis of which a patient gives their informed consent for anaesthesia before surgery. Our objective was to adapt such documents to plain language standards, thanks to which they will be more accessible to an average patient. Material and methods. Two documents were drafted: Information about anaesthesia and Informed consent for anaesthesia. Within the editing process, we applied the principles of Plain Polish worked out for the Polish language. Results. Similar documents available in Polish medical institutions were collected. For the comparison of the texts, the readability formula – Plain Language Index (PLI) – recently available in Poland was used. This algorithm assesses 10 properties of the style and, based on these, it measures the simplicity of the text. Conclusions. Both documents which we designed obtained the standard of plain language (PLI 50% and more). They turned out to be the most accessible out of all the texts examined.