Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Language In Genetics Research Informed Consent: The Language Gap And Unrecognized Miscommunication, Justin Morgenstern

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Informed choice is fundamentally a process of communication, reliant entirely on the tools of language. However, the meanings and understandings of words change with time, setting, and context, threatening the basis of consent. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of Canadian genetics research documents, exploring the impacts of language on informed consent. Numerous language usages were noted as potential barriers to informed consent, including language that was vague, variable, and unusually defined. Unique combinations of words were observed to generate novel concepts without clear meanings and definitions were absent or unclear. However, the ambiguity of the language was concealed by …