ArticlePloS one2008
The role of medical language in changing public perceptions of illness.
Article in PloS one, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Impact of selective evidence presentation on judgments of health inequality trends: an experimental study.PloS one · 2013Trial
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- Effect of Changes in Canine Thyroid Cancer Terminology on Caregiver Anxiety Levels and Treatment Preferences in a Scenario-Based Study.Veterinary and comparative oncology · 2025Article
- We Choose to Call it 'Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy': Findings of AO Spine RECODE-DCM, an International and Multi-Stakeholder Partnership to Agree a Standard Unifying Term and Definition for a Disease.Global spine journal · 2024Article
- COVID-19, Framing and Naming a Pandemic: How What Is Not in a Disease Name May Be More Important than What Is.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Presenting complaint: use of language that disempowers patients.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2022Article
- Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) Name Change: Requiem or Reveille?Journal of clinical and translational hepatology · 2021Review
- Article
- Language and Communication Impact of Hypertension: A Qualitative Study.International journal of hypertension · 2021Article
- Obesity subtypes, related biomarkers & heterogeneity.The Indian journal of medical research · 2020Review
- Application of Disease Etiology and Natural History to Prevention in Primary Health Care: A Discourse.Medical principles and practice : international journal of the Kuwait University, Health Science Centre · 2020Review
- Conceptualising post-stroke fatigue: a cross-sectional survey of UK-based physiotherapists and occupational therapists.BMJ open · 2019Article
- Computational Lexical Analysis of the Language Commonly Used to Describe Gout.Arthritis care & research · 2016Article
- A preliminary mixed-method investigation of trust and hidden signals in medical consultations.PloS one · 2014Article
- Do you think it's a disease? a survey of medical students.BMC medical education · 2012Article
- The Obesities: An Overview of Convergent and Divergent Paradigms.American journal of lifestyle medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the impact of medical terminology on perceptions of disease. Specifically, we look at the changing public perceptions of newly medicalized disorders with accompanying newly medicalized terms (e.g. impotence has become erectile dysfunction disorder). Does using "medicalese" to label a recently medicalized disorder lead to a change in the perception of that condition? Undergraduate students (n = 52) rated either the medical or lay label for recently medicalized disorders (such as erectile dysfunction disorder vs. impotence) and established medical conditions (such as a myocardial infarction vs. heart attack) for their perceived seriousness, disease representativeness and prevalence. Students considered the medical label of the recently medicalized disease to be more serious (mean = 4.95 (SE = .27) vs. mean = 3.77 (SE = .24) on a ten point scale), more representative of a disease (mean = 2.47 (SE = .09) vs. mean = 1.83 (SE = .09) on a four point scale), and have lower prevalence (mean = 68 (SE = 12.6) vs. mean = 122 (SE = 18.1) out of 1,000) than the same disease described using common language. A similar pattern was not seen in the established medical conditions, even when controlled for severity. This study demonstrates that the use of medical language in communication can induce bias in perception; a simple switch in terminology results in a disease being perceived as more serious, more likely to be a disease, and more likely to be a rare condition. These findings regarding the conceptualization of disease have implications for many areas, including medical communication with the public, advertising, and public policy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.