In their own words? A terminological analysis of e-mail to a cancer information service.
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.
Smith
Catherine Arnott
CA
Center for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Stavri
P Zoë
PZ
Chapman
Wendy Webber
WW
D034742:Electronic Mail; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D009369:Neoplasms; D010361:Patients; D009626:Terminology as Topic; D014825:Vocabulary