Complicated medical lingo can confuse patients: researchers
Last Updated: Thursday, April 24, 2008 | 4:59 PM ET
CBC News
Using complicated medical jargon can be confusing, anxiety inducing and potentially dangerous for patients, a new study found.
The research, the focus of this week's editorial in the Lancet, finds that when doctors speak to their patients using the terminology they learned in medical school, patients can fail to identify what it is that's being said, be confused about their diagnosis or incorrectly interpret their condition.
According to health experts, the confusion can happen very easily.
"There are words that sound the same, like hypo and hyper," Dr. Peter Lin, a Toronto-based general practitioner, told CBC News Thursday. It would be very easy for a patient to hear the opposite of what was said by a physician, leading to an incorrectly interpreted diagnosis, he said.
While "hypo" means something is under, or below, normal, "hyper" means something is high, or elevated.
Even seemingly straightforward phrases like "benign," which means something is not life-threatening, can be problematic, Lin said.
"Let's say I tell a patient, 'You have a benign lesion on your liver.'" The person might only hear the words "lesion" and "liver," and assume they have a dire condition, he said.
"Imagine the anxiety there would be around that."
Doctors often forget that the medical jargon they use daily in conversations with colleagues usually isn't well-understood by the general public, Lin said.
"It's actually a different language that we're learning," said Lin. "When we study that all day long, we forget that the person that we're talking to has never studied that language."
Patients should be more assertive: Lin
Doctors should explain complicated medical terms as clearly as possible to prevent patient confusion, he said.
Dr. Melinda Lyons, the lead author of the study, agreed.
"For the sake of clinicians and patients alike, removal of archaic, risk-prone terms to simplify the language of medicine is a necessary step," she said in a news release.
As for patients, Lin suggested they take a more assertive role and request clarity.
"You need to slow them [doctors] down and say, 'Does benign mean a good thing or a bad thing?'"
He also recommended patients learn some common medical terms particular to their condition, such as acronyms for tests they frequently undergo, to increase their understanding.
