Whose party is it?

By: Robert Krell, President, Krell Clinical Communications

Why do so many informed consent forms (ICFs) start with “We are inviting you to…(join, take part, participate, volunteer for)…”

It sounds like the potential study participant is being invited to a party. When I hear the word invite I cannot help but think of something fun with cupcakes and refreshments.

Of course, that may be a narrow interpretation of the word invite. There are other legitimate uses. You could invite someone to give you an opinion. A political candidate could invite criticism by their remarks.

One of my e-dictionaries says invite can be used to make a polite request such as “She invited him to sit down.” That sounds okay, but then they give the example of [invited to fill out]…an application for a job.” That sounds odd, especially in today’s job-cutting environment. Aren’t most applicants told that they need to fill out an application (implies the possibility of a job) or they can fill out an application (implies no possibility of a job) or please fill out an application (implies they want you to take the job), but you are invited to fill out an application? I don’t think so.

My Encarta® online World English Dictionary provides some interesting insight to the word invite. Not only do they say it means to ask someone to come, go, do, or say something, the verb invite also means:

• to encourage or provoke something that might not have happened otherwise

That’s the problem with using the word invite. It is a subtle attempt to cause something to happen that might not have otherwise happened. In other words, it’s an inducement, a subtle way of trying to persuade someone to do something. My Encarta online thesaurus gives 3 synonyms for invite in this order: ask, tempt, invitation.

We all know that an informed consent form (ICF) is not meant to tempt the reader into participating in a study. Tempt (verb):

1. To cause desire or craving to arise in somebody
2. to persuade or attempt to persuade somebody to do something considered wrong
3. to invite or attract somebody

I think the use of the word invite in ICFs is an innocent attempt to ask the reader to consider participating in the study. However, we don’t want to tempt the potential participant into thinking the study is going to be a lot of fun. So why not just say, “You are being asked to participate…” instead of “You are being invited to participate…?

I invite you to comment.

Comments

[Irene Melamed]

Dear Robert and members of this forum: I completely agree with your thoughts and suprisingly I´m from Argentina and have a similar perception with the word invite but in Spanish: invitar..and you have also used this term to kindly invite us to place a comment.

I guess the word "invite" - specially in the pediatrics research scenario where children are invited to birthdays - need to be replaced by other, because it might be a source of misconception.

Best regards,
Irene

[Moderator]

Irene and Forum Readers:

Great comment about pediatric studies from Irene. I wasn’t actually referring to pediatric studies when I wrote that forum post, but now that Irene mentioned it, I think it’s even more important to avoid the word “invite” (invitar in Spanish, as she points out) when writing an informed consent form (ICF) or document for a pediatric study.

If we take it one step farther, and think about the word “invite” in “Assent” forms / documents, which are highly simplified descriptions of the study written for a minor who is being asked to particpate in a pediatric study. For an Assent document, which the minor is supposed to be reading, it would be even more critical to avoid the word “invite.” Thanks Irene for your thoughts and comments.

Robert Krell