Short-Form Video Informed Consent Compared With Written Consent for Adolescents and Young Adults: Randomized Experiment.

Background: Adolescents and young adults have the highest prevalence of e-cigarette use ("vaping"), but they are difficult to enroll in health research studies. Previous studies have found that video consent can improve comprehension and make informed consent procedures more accessible, but the videos in previous studies are much longer than videos on contemporary social media platforms that are popular among young people.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a short-form (90-second) video consent compared with a standard written consent for a vaping cessation study for adolescents and young adults.

Methods: We conducted a web-based experiment with 435 adolescents and young adults (aged 13-24 years) recruited by a web-based survey research provider. Each participant was randomly assigned to view either a short-form video consent or a written consent form describing a behavioral study of a social media-based vaping cessation program. Participants completed a postexposure survey measuring three outcomes: (1) comprehension of the consent information, (2) satisfaction with the consent process, and (3) willingness to participate in the described study. Independent sample 2-tailed t tests and chi-square tests were conducted to compare the outcomes between the 2 groups.

Results: In total, 435 cases comprised the final analytic sample (video: n=215, 49.4%; written: n=220, 50.6%). There was no significant difference in characteristics between the 2 groups (all P>.05). Participants who watched the short-form video completed the consent review and postconsent survey process in less time (average 4.5 minutes) than those in the written consent group (5.1 minutes). A total of 83.2% (179/215) of the participants in the video consent condition reported satisfaction with the overall consent process compared with 76.3% (168/220) in the written consent condition (P=.047). There was no difference in the ability to complete consent unassisted and satisfaction with the amount of time between study conditions. There was no difference in the composite measure of overall comprehension, although in individual measures, participants who watched the short-form video consent performed better in 4 measures of comprehension about risk, privacy, and procedures, while participants who read the written document consent had better comprehension of 2 measures of study procedures. There was no difference between the groups in willingness to participate in the described study.

Conclusions: Short-form informed consent videos had similar comprehension and satisfaction with the consent procedure among adolescents and young adults. Short-form informed consent videos may be a feasible and acceptable alternative to the standard written consent process, although video and written consent forms have different strengths with respect to comprehension. Because they match how young people consume media, short-form videos may be particularly well suited for adolescents and young adults participating in research.