Language and care

Historically, healthcare has been littered with out-of-date language which sets health professionals up to deliver less than optimal care. Paternalistic terms such as ‘date of confinement’ (date a pregnant woman should be contained to her chamber to prepare for childbirth) and hysterical (a mental disorder thought to have been related to the uterus) have now been replaced with more appropriate descriptors, such as estimated due date, and anxiety disorder. However, judgemental, biased, paternalistic and stigmatising language still permeate contemporary healthcare.

We now know that our language can influence patient care. When a paramedic documents sepsis as the primary impression, the patient is administered antibiotics significantly earlier than when sepsis is not mentioned (Studnek et al, 2012). Our language can also set up biases which can negatively impact patient outcomes and has been proven to alter clinicians' attitudes and decisions (Goddu et al, 2018). Patients are also increasingly accessing their medical records and research demonstrates that patients often find clinicians' language in their medical notes to cause offence, reducing their trust in the healthcare system (Fernández et al, 2021).