title: In their own words? A terminological analysis of e-mail to a cancer information service.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To better understand the terms used by consumers to describe their health information needs and determine if this "consumer terminology"differs from those used by health care professionals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Features and findings identified in 139 e-mail messages to the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's Cancer Information and Referral Service were coded and matched against the 2001 Unified Medical Language System Metathesaurus.
  
  
  RESULTS
  504 unique terms were identified. 185 (36%) were exact matches to concepts in the 2001 UMLS Metathesaurus (MTH). 179 (35%) were partial string matches; 119 (24%) were known synonyms for MTH concepts; and 2 (<1%) were lexical variants. Only 19,or 4% of the total terms, were not found to be present in the 2001 MT1H.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  96% of the clinical findings and features mentioned in e-mail by correspondents who did not self-identify as healthcare professionals were described using terms from controlled healthcare terminologies. The notion of a paradigmatic "consumer" who uses a particular vocabulary specific to her "consumer" status may be ill-founded.
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Catherine Arnott
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: P Zoë
authors.initials: PZ
authors.lastname: Stavri
authors.forename: Wendy Webber
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Chapman
mesh_terms: D034742:Electronic Mail; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D009369:Neoplasms; D010361:Patients; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014825:Vocabulary