Reformed Consent: Adapting to New Media and Research Participant Preferences‪.‬

The principle of respect for persons clearly demands that investigators communicate with potential research participants in a way that fosters comprehension of the information relevant to deciding whether to enroll in a particular study. (1) Federal regulations governing research with humans require documentation of consent with the participant's signature on a printed consent form, but such documentation should not be confused with the consent process itself. (2) As noted in a relevant report from the Institute of Medicine, A notable side effect of using research consent forms as risk-management tools is that their average length has steadily increased over the past few decades, (4) despite longstanding evidence that increased document length hinders participant comprehension of key information. (5)