The Privileged Status of Prestigious Terminology: Impact of ???Medicalese??? on Clinical Judgments

Norman, Geoffrey R.; Arfai, Babak; Gupta, Arun; Brooks, Lee R.; Eva, Kevin W.

doi:10.1097/00001888-200310001-00026

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…If such simple linguistic phenomena, such as ease of pronunciation, or having English language versus Latinate-sounding terminology in medicine (Eva et al, 2001;Norman et al, 2003;Young et al, 2008), can consistently influence our decisions regarding safety, severity, and care-seeking behavior, it offers caution for public communication and presentation of health information. Tasso et al (2014) warned against the use of drug names that suggested their expected outcome because they were perceived as more effective and less risky than names that had no meaning or alluded to the target health issue.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, information on the Internet is not always reliable (Diaz et al, 2002), frequently includes multiple possible diagnoses that range in severity, and diseases are often presented in technical or medical terminology (e.g. "medicalese"; Eva et al, 2001;Norman et al, 2003;Young et al, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to the presentation of multiple possible diagnoses, many potential diagnosis and symptom labels are frequently presented to lay individuals in complex medical language-often referred to as "medicalese" (Eva et al, 2001;Norman et al, 2003;Young et al, 2008). Medicalese refers to the use of specialized language to refer to medical disorders by using Latin or Greek derivatives (e.g., "Myalgic Encephalopathy") or using Englishbased technical terms that connote a special medical status (e.g., "Gastroeophageal Reflux Disease").…”

Section: The Effects Of Using Medical Terminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Medicalese refers to the use of specialized language to refer to medical disorders by using Latin or Greek derivatives (e.g., "Myalgic Encephalopathy") or using Englishbased technical terms that connote a special medical status (e.g., "Gastroeophageal Reflux Disease"). Overall, a disease presented in medical language is typically considered to be more severe, more representative of a disease, and less prevalent (Eva et al, 2001;Norman et al, 2003;Young et al, 2008). Interestingly, medical language has been demonstrated to influence the perceptions of not only lay individuals (Young et al, 2008), but also early medical learners and practitioners (Eva et al, 2001;Eva and Wood, 2003;Norman et al, 2003).…”

Section: The Effects Of Using Medical Terminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overall, a disease presented in medical language is typically considered to be more severe, more representative of a disease, and less prevalent (Eva et al, 2001;Norman et al, 2003;Young et al, 2008). Interestingly, medical language has been demonstrated to influence the perceptions of not only lay individuals (Young et al, 2008), but also early medical learners and practitioners (Eva et al, 2001;Eva and Wood, 2003;Norman et al, 2003). However, some research suggests that this influence of language may be limited to newly medicalized disorders-disorders where the medical language is still quite new, and perhaps poorly recognized (Young et al, 2008) and that this use of medical language may be involved in changing public perceptions of newly medicalized disorders (Young et al, 2008).…”

Section: The Effects Of Using Medical Terminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

The Impact of Medical Terminology in Self-Triage Decision-Making

D'Angelo

Humphreys

et al. 2017

Front. Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective: The present study examined whether medical terminology impacts self-triage decisions (deciding if and when to seek medical treatment) compared to lay terminology.Methods: Undergraduate psychology student participants read 32 hypothetical health scenarios and reported how urgently they would seek care ["In this situation, when would you seek medical attention?" presented along with a seven-point scale, with anchors at either extreme: "Never (At the next scheduled appointment, if at all)" and "As soon as possible (Within the hour)," reflecting the options coded as 1 and 7, respectively]. Data were collected in person via a paper-based questionnaire. Scenarios included a description of symptoms, which were labeled as consistent with a particular medical disorder using either a lay disease label (e.g. "Heart Attack") or medical terminology (e.g. "Myocardial Infarction"). The 32 health scenarios represented medical disorders that purposefully reflected a spectrum of severity, commonality, and how recently the medical terminology had entered common use. results: For disorders for which medical terminology has been more recently established, participants reported that they would seek care more urgently when the disorder was presented using a medical label [mean (SE) = 4.08 (0.23)] than when they were described using the lay disease labels [3.32 (0.23), t(35) = 5.36, p < 0.001, e.g., "seborrheic dermatitis" versus "chronic dandruff"]. However, this differential response to medical or lay disease labels was not observed for disorders for which medical terminology has been more well established [medical labels = 5.16 (0.18); lay labels = 4.89 (0.18), t(35) = −1.67, p = 0.104, e.g., "heart attack" and "myocardial infarction"].conclusion: These results indicate that self-triage decision-making can be readily influenced by the terminology used to identify a disorder; however, this phenomenon appears to be particularly relevant for disorders in which public opinion may still be in flux.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Effects Of Using Medical Terminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Effects Of Using Medical Terminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Effects Of Using Medical Terminologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Impact of Medical Terminology in Self-Triage Decision-Making

D'Angelo

Humphreys

et al. 2017

Front. Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The role of biomedical knowledge in diagnosis of difficult clinical cases

Woods

Brooks

Norman

2007

Adv in Health Sci Educ

Self Cite

129

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although biomedical knowledge is believed to be of little value in diagnosis of routine clinical cases, studies of clinical reasoning have found that physicians revert to use of basic biomedical knowledge when faced with challenging clinical problems. The current paper presents two experiments that empirically examine the role of biomedical knowledge in diagnosis of difficult cases by novice diagnosticians. Novices are taught to diagnose a series of artificial diseases using either knowledge of causal mechanisms or a list of clinical features. In Experiment 1, participants are then tested on two types of clinical challenges: (1) case summaries with irrelevant findings; (2) cases using unfamiliar terminology. Participants with an understanding of underlying mechanisms out performed their counterparts on both types of cases. In Experiment 2, participants are tested 1 week after initial training. Participants with knowledge of causal mechanisms were found to do better on cases with unfamiliar terminology. The results of the two studies provide additional support for the critical role of biomedical knowledge in diagnosis of difficult clinical cases.

show abstract