Exploring Differences in Interpretation of Words Essential in Medical Expert-Patient Communication

TL;DR

This study investigates how patients and medical professionals interpret words in medical questionnaires, revealing significant differences that could impact communication and treatment decisions.

Contribution

It models patient perceptions of questionnaire words using fuzzy sets and highlights potential miscommunication risks in medical contexts.

Findings

Significant differences in word interpretation between patients and professionals

Fuzzy set modeling reveals perceptual uncertainties

Potential for miscommunication in medical assessments

Abstract

In the context of cancer treatment and surgery, quality of life assessment is a crucial part of determining treatment success and viability. In order to assess it, patients completed questionnaires which employ words to capture aspects of patients well-being are the norm. As the results of these questionnaires are often used to assess patient progress and to determine future treatment options, it is important to establish that the words used are interpreted in the same way by both patients and medical professionals. In this paper, we capture and model patients perceptions and associated uncertainty about the words used to describe the level of their physical function used in the highly common (in Sarcoma Services) Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) questionnaire. The paper provides detail about the interval-valued data capture as well as the subsequent modelling of the data using fuzzy sets. Based on an initial sample of participants, we use Jaccard similarity on the resulting words models to show that there may be considerable differences in the interpretation of commonly used questionnaire terms, thus presenting a very real risk of miscommunication between patients and medical professionals as well as within the group of medical professionals.