For many patients, medical jargon relative to imaging relays opposite message of what is intended
Patients’ understanding of their imaging is an important part of their general health management, but new data indicates that the medical jargon clinicians use to describe radiologic findings leaves many patients confused.
In fact, use of medical jargon frequently results in patients interpreting their findings in the exact opposite way of clinicians’ intentions.
For example, the term “negative” when used in an everyday context typically refers to something that is bad—negative feedback, negative balance, etc. However, in the medical field, and radiology in particular, when test results are negative, that is most often a good thing and something that merits relief.
While it is widely known that the use of medical jargon should be avoided when speaking to patients, it can be difficult for those who are constantly immersed in the field of medicine to speak less, well, medicinally, the authors of a new paper published in JAMA recently explained.
“One potential reason for this disconnect is that, as health care professionals, we simply assume our patients understand the terminology we are using. No matter how intentional we are about minimizing jargon, we will not avoid using words and phrases that we fail to recognize as jargon in the first place,” corresponding author Michael Pitt, MD, of the University of Minnesota and co-authors suggested.
Pitt and colleagues recently conducted a survey of patients to get an idea of how they understood various phrases involving commonly used medical jargon. Through this, they found numerous variations in how patients perceived medical jargon used to describe study results, whether positive or negative.
While almost all of the patients (96%) knew that a negative cancer screening was a good result, much fewer understood that the phrase “your tumor is progressing” was unwelcome news or that “positive lymph nodes” meant that cancer had spread. Most interpreted an “unremarkable chest x-ray" as a good thing, but just 21% understood that when a radiologist refers to their imaging as “impressive” that it is generally not in a positive context; just 9% knew what the term “febrile” meant.
There were numerous other phrases included in the survey, but for the most part, the nonjargon phrases were understood significantly better, the experts reported.
The authors suggested that some of the terms used in medical jargon—words like occult, gross and negative—could be to blame for the miscommunication of results, as those words are perceived in opposite ways to the general public in comparison to the medical field. For example, when something is “grossly intact” in the medical field, that is typically a good thing. But in the general public, something that is gross is most often a thing that is undesirable or unpleasant.
Regardless, the authors suggested that these findings are a good reminder for clinicians to be mindful of their language when speaking directly to patients.
“Medical jargon remains a common source of confusion for patients, and care should be taken to avoid using it with patients to prevent misunderstanding,” the authors concluded.
The study is available for viewing here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.