Alla Keselman|Catherine Arnott Smith
A classification of errors in lay comprehension of medical documents
United States National Library of Medicine|University of Wisconsin–Madison
emphasis participatory medicine requires patients consumers participate tasks traditionally reserved healthcare providers includes reading comprehending medical documents often necessarily context interacting personal health records phrs research suggests giving patients access medical documents many benefits eg improved patientprovider communication lay people often difficulty understanding medical information informatics address problem developing tools support comprehension requires indepth understanding nature causes errors lay people make comprehending clinical documents objective study develop classification scheme comprehension errors based lay individuals retellings two documents containing clinical text description clinical trial typical office visit note comprehensive scheme serve foundation development taxonomy patients comprehension errors eighty participants healthy volunteers read retold two medical documents datadriven content analysis procedure used extract classify retelling errors resulting hierarchical classification scheme contains nine categories 23 subcategories common error made participants involved incorrectly recalling brand names medications common errors included misunderstanding clinical concepts misreporting objective clinical research study physicians findings patients visit confusing misspelling clinical terms combination informatics support health education likely improve accuracy lay comprehension medical documents