The Deaconess Informed Consent Comprehension Test (DICCT) was developed to help assess the level of comprehension of informed consent information in persons enrolled in a clinical trial. The authors are from Deaconess Family Medicine in St. Louis, St. Louis University, University of Texas in Austin and Texas A&M University.
The instrument consists of 14 questions.
where:
• Item 14 is covered under HIPAA.
Response
Points
incorrect answer
0
no answer
0
incomplete
1
inadequate ("poverty of content"
1
correct answer
2
total score =
= SUM(points for all 14 questions)
Interpretation:
• minimum score: 0
• maximum score: 28
• The higher the score the greater the apparent comprehension of the consent.
• A person with a few incomplete or inadequate answers can have instruction in the deficient areas repeated.
• If a person has many deficiencies in understanding then (a) the person may be unable to give informed consent or (b) the instructions may be inadequate. The latter should be suspected if multiple subjects perform poorly.
Performance:
• The DICCT moderately correlated with the WAIS-R (Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale) vocabulary subtest.
• The DICCT moderately correlated with the WRAT-R (Wide Range Achievement Test) reading subtest.
• The authors found the DICCT to be a reliable instrument for assessing comprehension of informed consent information by subjects participating in a clinical trial.
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