Doctor-Patient Communication: Is Patient Knowledge of Medical Terminology Improving?

We reviewed the research on how much medical terminology patients understand and focused in particular on updating original research by Samora, Saunders, and Larson (1961). Two hundred twenty-four people were asked to define 50 medical terms selected from a list generated by physicians and other health professionals. The results indicate that, although word recognition of certain key medical terms has improved, the improvement, on the whole, was less than predicted. One expected result did emerge: The college educated participants recognized more of the terms than the others. Ten subjects responded to all 50 words correctly, although not one of the words was identified correctly by all respondents. Gender difference in the ability to understand medical terminology did not emerge, but a difference in understanding depending on age did emerge. Persons older than 65 did not recognize as many of the terms as those in the 45 to 64 age group. On the whole, results suggest that medical practitioners need to be even more aware of the terminology gap that exists between them and patients and need to adapt their language to match the knowledge level of the patient.