Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 3, 2026
FISH for Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis
Published on: February 23, 2011
Pediatric residents' use of jargon during counseling about newborn genetic screening results
Michael Farrell1, Lindsay Deuster, Jodi Donovan
1Center for Patient Care and Outcomes Research, 8701 Watertown Plank Rd, Milwaukee, WI 53226-0509, USA. mfarrell@mcw.edu
Insights
Pediatric residents use excessive medical jargon when discussing positive newborn screening results. Few jargon terms are explained, making genetic counseling potentially difficult for parents to understand.
Area of Science:
- Medical Communication
- Genetics
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Newborn screening tests identify infants at risk for serious genetic disorders.
- Effective communication is crucial for parental understanding of test results and follow-up care.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the frequency and explanation of medical jargon used by pediatric residents during discussions of positive newborn screening results.
- To assess the clarity of genetic counseling provided to parents regarding conditions like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell hemoglobinopathy.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of recorded resident-parent encounters using standardized parents.
- Quantitative assessment of jargon word count, explanation frequency, and time lag between jargon use and explanation.
Main Results:
- Residents used an average of 20 unique jargon words per transcript (72.3 total words).
- Only 17% of jargon words were explained, with an average delay of 8.2 statements.
- High inter-rater reliability (kappa=0.92) confirmed the accuracy of the abstraction procedure.
Conclusions:
- The high prevalence of unexplained medical jargon suggests that communication during newborn screening counseling may be overly complex for parents.
- Improving the clarity of genetic counseling is essential for ensuring informed parental decision-making and adherence to recommended care.
Objective:
The goal was to investigate pediatric residents' usage of jargon during discussions about positive newborn screening test results.
Methods:
An explicit-criteria abstraction procedure was used to identify jargon usage and explanations in transcripts of encounters between residents and standardized parents of a fictitious infant found to carry cystic fibrosis or sickle cell hemoglobinopathy. Residents were recruited from a series of educational workshops on how to inform parents about positive newborn screening test results. The time lag from jargon words to explanations was measured by using "statements," each of which contained 1 subject and 1 predicate.
Results:
Duplicate abstraction revealed reliability kappa of 0.92. The average number of unique jargon words per transcript was 20; the total jargon count was 72.3 words. There was an average of 7.5 jargon explanations per transcript, but the explained/total jargon ratio was only 0.17. When jargon was explained, the average time lag from the first usage to the explanation was 8.2 statements.
Conclusion:
The large number of jargon words and the small number of explanations suggest that physicians' counseling about newborn screening may be too complex for some parents.
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