Patients' understanding of technical terms used during the pre-anaesthetic consultation

Communication between patients and anaesthetists is being recognised as an increasingly important aspect of clinical care. Patients need to understand the nature and consequences of any proposed procedure prior to giving informed consent. In this regard, anaesthetists have a responsibility to provide adequate information about anaesthesia and related procedures in a form that patients are likely to understand. We investigated whether patients understood the technical terms used by the anaesthetist. We observed 68 obstetric and gynaecological pre-anaesthesia consultations at two tertiary hospitals in South Australia. These pre-anaesthesia consultations were conducted by consultant anaesthetists on 46 occasions (68%) and by anaesthesia trainees (nine registrars and one resident medical officer) on 22 occasions (32%). Approximately half of the patients participating in the study (45%) failed to understand one or more of the terms used during their consultation. Of the technical terms used more than once, "reflux" was the most poorly understood, with seven of 36 patients (19%) having either poor or no understanding. The next five most commonly misunderstood technical terms were "aspiration", "allergy", "anaphylaxis", "local anaesthetic" and "sedation". We have identified many technical terms that may not be understood by patients presenting for anaesthesia care. An awareness of commonly misunderstood words may facilitate better transfer of information during pre-anaesthesia consultations. Our study findings should remind doctors that patients frequently fail to understand or take in what we tell them.