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A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography / Catherine Richards Golini

DOI (Published version): 10.23889/Suthesis.51643

Abstract

Despite the importance and the ubiquity of medical patient information in many healthcare systems in the world, we know very little about the lexical characteristics of the register. We do not know how patients perceive the information in the leaflets or whether the messages are transmitted effectiv...

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Published: 2019
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa51643
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first_indexed 2019-09-02T14:49:54Z
last_indexed 2019-10-21T16:57:45Z
id cronfa51643
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spelling 2019-09-03T11:45:51.1563909 v2 51643 2019-09-02 A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography 2019-09-02 Despite the importance and the ubiquity of medical patient information in many healthcare systems in the world, we know very little about the lexical characteristics of the register. We do not know how patients perceive the information in the leaflets or whether the messages are transmitted effectively and fully understood. How a medical authority instructs and obliges patients in written information is also unclear. While the number of radiographic examinations performed globally increases year on year, studies consistently show that patients lack basic knowledge regarding the commonly-performed exams and show very poor understanding of the concomitant risks associated with radiation. There is, then, a pressing need to investigate radiography patient information in order to better understand why, and where, it is less effective. This thesis applies three approaches common to the field of corpus linguistics to uncover some of the lexical characteristics of patient information for radiography. The approaches used in this thesis are a keyword extraction, a lexical bundles analysis and an investigation of modal verbs used to express obligation. The findings suggest that patient information for radiography possesses characteristics more common to academic prose than conversation, although the high informational content of the register goes some way to explaining this and suggests that the reliance on these structures may, to a certain extent, be unavoidable. Results also suggest that the reliance on should to oblige and instruct is problematic as it may cause interpretation problems for certain patients, including those for whom English is not a primary language. Certain other characteristics of patient information revealed by the analyses may also cause comprehension, and while further research is needed, none of these characteristics would be evaluated as problematic by standard readability measures, furthering doubts about the suitability of such measures for the evaluation of medical information. E-Thesis 31 12 2019 2019-12-31 10.23889/Suthesis.51643 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Doctoral Ph.D 2019-09-03T11:45:51.1563909 2019-09-02T11:15:51.3663847 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - English Language, Tesol, Applied Linguistics Catherine Richards Golini 1 0051643-02092019112123.pdf Catherine Richards Golini_PhD_Final (1).pdf 2019-09-02T11:21:23.5570000 Output 3006998 application/pdf E-Thesis – open access true 2021-09-01T00:00:00.0000000 true
title A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography
spellingShingle A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography
,
title_short A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography
title_full A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography
title_fullStr A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography
title_full_unstemmed A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography
title_sort A corpus based, lexical analysis of patient information for radiography
author ,
author2 Catherine Richards Golini
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2019
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/Suthesis.51643
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - English Language, Tesol, Applied Linguistics{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - English Language, Tesol, Applied Linguistics
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description Despite the importance and the ubiquity of medical patient information in many healthcare systems in the world, we know very little about the lexical characteristics of the register. We do not know how patients perceive the information in the leaflets or whether the messages are transmitted effectively and fully understood. How a medical authority instructs and obliges patients in written information is also unclear. While the number of radiographic examinations performed globally increases year on year, studies consistently show that patients lack basic knowledge regarding the commonly-performed exams and show very poor understanding of the concomitant risks associated with radiation. There is, then, a pressing need to investigate radiography patient information in order to better understand why, and where, it is less effective. This thesis applies three approaches common to the field of corpus linguistics to uncover some of the lexical characteristics of patient information for radiography. The approaches used in this thesis are a keyword extraction, a lexical bundles analysis and an investigation of modal verbs used to express obligation. The findings suggest that patient information for radiography possesses characteristics more common to academic prose than conversation, although the high informational content of the register goes some way to explaining this and suggests that the reliance on these structures may, to a certain extent, be unavoidable. Results also suggest that the reliance on should to oblige and instruct is problematic as it may cause interpretation problems for certain patients, including those for whom English is not a primary language. Certain other characteristics of patient information revealed by the analyses may also cause comprehension, and while further research is needed, none of these characteristics would be evaluated as problematic by standard readability measures, furthering doubts about the suitability of such measures for the evaluation of medical information.
published_date 2019-12-31T04:03:37Z
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score 11.034384

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