RESEARCH ARTICLE Readability and Content Assessment of Informed Consent Forms for Medical Procedures in Croatia

Background High quality of informed consent form is essential for adequate information transfer between physicians and patients. Current status of medical procedure consent forms in clinical prac-tice in Croatia specifically in terms of the readability and the content is unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the readability and the content of informed consent forms for diag-nostic and therapeutic procedures used with patients in Croatia. Methods 52 informed consent forms from six Croatian hospitals on the secondary and tertiary health-care level were tested for reading difficulty using Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) formula adjusted for Croatian language and for qualitative analysis of the content. Results The averaged SMOG grade of analyzed informed consent forms was 13.25 (SD 1.59, range 10–19). Content analysis revealed that informed consent forms included description of risks in 96 % of the cases, benefits in 81%, description of procedures in 78%, alternative