Improving risk communication: a proof-of-concept randomised control trial assessing the impact of visual aids for...

Informed consent is a fundamental component in the work-up for surgical procedures. Statistical risk information pertaining to a procedure is by nature probabilistic and challenging to communicate, especially to those with poor numerical literacy. Visual aids and audio/video tools have previously been shown to improve patients' understanding of statistical information. In this study, we aimed to explore the impact of different methods of risk communication in healthy participants randomized to either undergo the consent process with visual aids or the standard consent process for lumbar puncture.

Healthy individuals above 18 years old were eligible. The exclusion criteria were prior experience of the procedure or relevant medical knowledge, lack of capacity to consent, underlying cognitive impairment and hospitalised individuals. After randomisation, both groups received identical medical information about the procedure of a lumbar puncture in a hypothetical clinical scenario via different means of consent. The control group underwent the standard consent process in current clinical practice (Consent Form 1 without any illustrative examples), whereas the intervention group received additional anatomy diagrams, the Paling Palette and the Paling perspective scale. Anonymised questionnaires were received to evaluate their perception of the procedure and its associated risks.

Fifty-two individuals were eligible without statistically significant differences in age, sex, professional status and the familiarity of the procedure. Visual aids were noted to improve the confidence of participants to describe the risks by themselves (p = 0.009) and participants in the intervention group felt significantly less overwhelmed with medical information (p = 0.028). The enhanced consent process was found to be significantly more acceptable by participants (p = 0.03). There was a trend towards greater appropriateness (p = 0.06) and it appeared to have "good" usability (median SUS = 76.4), although this also did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.06).

Visual aids could be an appropriate alternative method for medical consent without being inferior regarding the understanding of the procedure, its risks and its benefits. Future studies could possibly compare or incorporate multiple interventions to determine the most effective tools in a larger scale of population including patients as well as healthy individuals.