Friday, December 12, 2008
Careful what you say...and how you say it
Patients get more anxious when you use the medical terms for conditions and diseases than the lay terms, a new study in PLoS Medicine finds.
When study subjects were given the medical term for a condition-- like "erectile dysfunction"-- the condition was perceived as being more severe, more apt to be a disease, and more rare, than when they were given a layperson's label--like impotence, a press release said.
Here's the thing: the effect was only seen with terms that have been "medicalized" in the last ten years, like "hyperhidrosis" for excessive sweatiness. Medical terms that have been around for awhile, like "hypertension", didn't make patients more nervous.
If a patient thinks her disease is more serious if you say "GERD" than "heartburn," it may affect how seriously she takes care of her health in relation to that condition, one of the authors said. So choose your words wisely.
posted by Jessica Berthold at
10:30 AM
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5 Comments:
So the question is: should docs use medical terms to frighten patients into taking their condition seriously (and taking their meds regularly), or should we try to normalize the disease by using the layman's term for it? :)
Good question. I wonder if docs should pick and choose, depending on the situation...?
Jessica: I agree..different situations require different terminology. Also the medical I.Q. of the patient plays a role. This is where the "art" of medicine comes in. I have found that the most confusing term for a patient is "lesion".
Toni-- that's interesting. I can definitely see how that would be a confusing word, and would come across as more frightening than, say, "wound."
I think it's more frightening because it is unknown. Humans fear uncertainty, and having a multisyllabic disease name presented to you quickly causes uneasiness
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