Assessing pet owners' knowledge and comprehension of veterinary medical terminology

Veterinary communication plays a key role in client satisfaction, patient outcomes and clinician wellbeing. Communication assessment tools can help to facilitate improvement strategies.

Over a 5-month period, pet owners attending a small animal hospital were asked to complete a survey assessing their understanding of commonly used veterinary terms and phrases, either online or in paper format. Scores were used to identify areas requiring improvement and investigate the effect of demographic characteristics on owner understanding.

A total of 378 completed questionnaires was received. Over 97% of owners rated the quality of veterinary communication as good or moderate to good. However, approximately one-fifth believed that communication could be improved. While veterinary terms and phrases were broadly understood, none was correctly interpreted by all respondents, and common misconceptions were identified. Respondents with prior medical knowledge scored higher.

The survey methodology allows for misinterpretation of questions, response bias and non-compliance with the requirement that respondents do not receive help in completing the survey from external sources.

While pet owners generally perceived veterinary communication to be good, some commonly used terms and phrases were frequently misinterpreted. Vets should therefore be encouraged to use lay terms when communicating with clients and to take time to confirm that their intended message has been fully understood.