Surgeon use of medical jargon with parents in the outpatient setting

Area of Science:

• Medical communication
• Pediatric surgery
• Patient-physician interaction

Background:

• Unexplained medical terminology creates significant barriers in effective communication between clinicians and parents.
• Understanding the prevalence and patterns of medical jargon use is crucial for improving patient-provider dialogue in healthcare settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the frequency and nature of medical jargon used during consultations in a pediatric surgical environment.
• To identify factors associated with the use of medical jargon by clinicians and parents.
• To assess the potential impact of jargon on parent involvement in decision-making.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated 64 parent-otolaryngologist encounters for children with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB).
• Utilized questionnaires for demographic and clinical data, and parental role in decision-making.
• Employed two coders to review consultations for clinician and parent jargon utterance, with logistic regression for analysis.

Main Results:

• High prevalence of unexplained medical jargon observed (mean 28.9 utterances per visit), including SDB-specific terms.
• Clinician jargon use increased with perceived parental involvement in decision-making (OR=3.4) and parent jargon use (OR=1.2).
• Parents also contributed to jargon use, averaging 4.3 utterances per consultation.

Conclusions:

• Medical jargon is pervasive in pediatric surgical consultations, potentially impeding informed parent decision-making.
• Findings highlight the need for strategies to mitigate jargon and enhance patient-provider communication.
• This research establishes a basis for examining jargon use across diverse surgical specialties.