Impact of Sociocultural Factors on Health Communication
In collaboration with Sarah Bigi, Zsófia Demjén, Jan Engberg, Pascaline Faure and Rita Temmerman
Dániel Mány (Volume editor)
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Preface
- Part I: Terminology
- Transition in nursing documentation: Insights into the terminology of Hungarian nursing notes
- Standardized medical data for optimized health communication
- Part II: ESP Instruction
- Language learning strategy use and willingness to communicate among high- and low-anxiety health science students
- English for medical purposes: The importance of role-plays
- Feedback criteria for simulated patients in courses of languages for healthcare purposes
- Simulated online scenarios as a form of telemedicine practice in the English for Healthcare Purposes course for physiotherapy students
- Part III: Healthcare communication
- Is there an interpreter in the house? The intercultural needs of healthcare providers in communication with immigrant patients in Spain
- Development and assessment of an automatically creative and flexible use of medical English as a lingua franca – terminological awareness in healthcare communication
- “Doctor, I have not seen for three months / Docteur, je ne vois rien depuis trois mois”: A comparative lexicological analysis of words and expressions related to the body and its (dys)functions in the English and French common languages
- Culturally aware healthcare providers: training future physicians and midwives to work with trained interpreters
- Communication as language use in consultations: methodological considerations
- Part IV: Metaphors in healthcare
- How mothers think about postpartum mood disorders: A metaphor analysis of Hungarian online forums
- Just war? Variation in COVID-19 metaphors in Hungarian public communication
- Metaphors as markers for suicidal intent: Patterns in metaphorical language used in online forum posts about suicidal thoughts
- Semmelweis Medical Linguistics Investigations
Preface
Despite the profound role language plays in shaping healthcare delivery, clinical reasoning, patient experience, and professional identity, the systematic study of medical language has remained fragmented across disciplinary lines. Medical linguistics, as an emerging field at the intersection of linguistics, medicine, and communication studies, is still in its nascent stages—lacking both consolidated theoretical frameworks and an established international forum. With the launch of Semmelweis Medical Linguistics Investigations, we seek to address this lacuna. This inclusive label of medical linguistics allows us to unify diverse approaches and methodologies under a shared conceptual umbrella that highlights the essential role of language in healthcare contexts.This volume inaugurates a series dedicated to advancing scholarly dialogue, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration, and fostering the development of medical linguistics as a distinct and evolving domain of scientific inquiry.
This first volume assembles a diverse set of research contributions that reflect the conceptual breadth and methodological richness of the field. It is organized into four thematic sections: Terminology, ESP Instruction, Healthcare Communication, and Metaphors in Healthcare. The opening section investigates the transformation and standardization of medical terminology, particularly in nursing documentation and data-driven health communication. The second section explores the pedagogical challenges and innovations in teaching English for medical purposes, highlighting role-plays, telemedicine simulations, and feedback mechanisms involving simulated patients. The third section examines multilingual and intercultural dynamics in healthcare encounters, including interpreter-mediated communication, 8training for cultural competence, and comparative discourse analysis. The final section turns to metaphor as a powerful lens for understanding how health, illness, and emotional experience are conceptualized and expressed in both professional and lay contexts. Together, these chapters offer critical insights into how language operates in—and often defines—the lived realities of medicine.
Our intention with this series is not only to showcase the current state of research but also to cultivate an intellectual space where medical linguistics can grow into a recognized and robust field. We hope that this volume will serve as a point of departure for further explorations and collaborations, encouraging scholars, educators, and healthcare professionals alike to engage more deeply with the language of medicine and its far-reaching implications.
Transition in nursing documentation: Insights into the terminology of Hungarian nursing notes
Tünde Vágási1 – Gábor Gyenes1 – Zoltán Patonai2 – Éva Katalin Varga1
Abstract
The study examines the terminology and general characteristics of the nursing notes (handover) in inpatient care in Hungary, in order to determine the extent to which the move to electronic recording affects the quality of the record and thus the impact on the nursing process. The nursing notes of twenty-one anonymized patient files from a traumatology department were gradually transferred to the electronic system: at the time of the study, notes for five patients were handwritten and fourteen were electronically recorded. A manual and software-based analysis of the corpus was performed: terms, abbreviations, and acronyms, as well as stylistic features were extracted and compared. The results show that the terminological characteristics of the genre have substantially changed with the introduction of electronic recording.
Keywords: medical language, terminology, nursing notes, nursing documentation, corpus analysis, genre analysis, e-MedSolution
1. Introduction
In Hungary, the transfer of medical and nursing documents and records to electronic systems started in the early 2000s, and in some institutions this process has been fully implemented. At the moment, no standardized system exists, with each institution deciding which documents are kept electronically and which are kept in the traditional, handwritten format. As document management varies according to the local regulations of each institution, there is a need for a nationally-integrated, standardized system. The integration of the Hungarian Electronic Nursing Record (ENR) is currently in progress (Oláh et al., 2023), and the recording of bedside daily nursing activities in the system was tested in more than ten pilot institutions in the summer of 2022 (Oláh et al., 2023).
The aims of this study are firstly, to summarize the main features of the Hungarian nursing documentation system and secondly, to compare electronic and handwritten nursing documents prepared during patient care. 12The terminology and general characteristics of the nursing notes (handover) were examined; the notes were generated in inpatient care in 2019 and 2020 at the Department of Traumatology and Hand Surgery of the University of Pécs, Hungary, and were gradually transferred to the electronic system. The electronically recorded documents were stored in the clinic’s e-MedSolution integrated healthcare IT system, which was designed to provide both inpatient and ambulatory care functionality in a single application with a Hungarian-language interface. The handwritten and electronic documents in our corpus are particularly suitable for comparing the advantages and disadvantages of each recording method.
2. Theoretical background
Studies and research worldwide have demonstrated that the introduction of electronic nursing documentation improves patient safety, care efficiency and the quality of healthcare as well as care planning and evaluation. Adereti and Olaogun (2019) argue that electronic documentation, in contrast to its analogue (paper-based) counterpart, offers a significant advantage in standardized terminology, ensuring uniform wording. Meanwhile, the data recorded in electronic systems are generally more accurate and complete, since the system provides multiple control functions. The potential for errors in nursing documentation (Oláh, 2020, pp. 24–27) can be largely eliminated by completing electronic nursing documents (Fölker, 2014).
A further advantage is that healthcare professionals have rapid access to patient data, even in multiple specialties or institutions, as they can be easily shared among authorized individuals, increasing not only information availability but also collaboration (Potter et al., 2017). Electronic documentation also enables easier analysis of data, supporting healthcare institutions to improve processes and outcomes, and to improve quality of care (Moody et al., 2004; Khuan et al., 2018; McCarthy et al., 2019).
Several studies have focused on security and privacy issues (McCarthy et al., 2019; Tajabadi et al., 2020). Electronic nursing documentation systems generally apply strict privacy measures to ensure confidentiality and protection of patient health data, and have thus been found to be more reliable than paper-based documentation.
13De Groot et al. (2022) analyzed time savings with 195 Dutch community nurses. They found that electronic management of documentation enables data to be quickly recorded and retrieved from any location with access to an electronic system. Research on nurses in Florida also suggests that introducing electronic documentation would reduce the administrative burden on nurses (Moody et al., 2004). A survey of 100 nurses found that 36% of the participants agreed that electronic documentation had reduced their workload, 75% agreed that the quality of the documentation had improved and 76% of respondents felt that it had improved patient safety and therefore the quality of care (Oláh, 2020, p. 28).
In Hungary, there has been an increasing transition in the last decade to electronic nursing documentation, with e-MedSolution and Medworks used to record and store patient nursing care data and information.
Nursing care documentation is completed in accordance with the rules provided for in Act XLVII of 1997 on the processing and protection of health and related personal data. However, the nursing documentation is used solely for internal communication within the hospital department, or as evidence in possible criminal or civil legal proceedings. Nurses need to pass on correct information to their colleagues on other shifts to improve the healthcare process (Braaf et al., 2015).
Similarly to medical documentation, nursing documents are produced at the time of admission (nursing anamnesis, nursing assessment, and nursing care plan), during nursing care (patient care sheet, nursing notes or handover or course of disease, and nursing activities), and at the time of discharge (nursing discharge summary).
Table 1 details the documents, namely the parts of the nursing documentation that are generated during the admission, care and discharge of the patient, and compares them to medical documents in terms of their communication purpose and structural characteristics. Medical documents are usually kept in digital format and follow the patient throughout their hospital stay; they include medical history, examinations, tests and labs, diagnoses, and medications. However, the regulations of individual hospitals regarding documentation – which is maintained continuously throughout the care process – may include the possibility of paper records, although these should be at least partially transferred to the electronic system.
14Stages of inpatient care |
nursing documentation |
T |
medical documentation |
T |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Admission |
Nursing anamnesis (ápolási anamnézis) |
E |
Patient admission form: anamnesis (kórlap / betegfelvételi lap: anamnézis) |
E |
Nursing assessment (ápolási regisztráció) Nursing care plan (ápolási terv) |
E E |
Patient admission form: status (kórlap / betegfelvételi lap: státusz) |
E |
|
Care / treatment/ implement |
Patient care sheet (ápolási lap) Nursing notes / handover / course of care (ápolási jelentés, átadó, dekurzus) Nursing activities (ápolási tevékenységek) |
H H E |
Course of disease (dekurzus) |
E |
Discharge |
Details
- Pages
- 238
- Publication Year
- 2025
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631917855
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631917862
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631917848
- DOI
- 10.3726/b23115
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2025 (December)
- Keywords
- Medial linguistics Healthcare communication Medical terminology LSP ESP Telemedicine Medical translation Medical interpreting Patient-centered communication Metaphor in medicine Medical documentation Intercultural healthcare e-Health
- Published
- Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, Oxford, 2025. viii, 230 pp., 16 fig. b/w, 28 tables.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
Biographical notes
Katalin Fogarasi (Volume editor)
Dániel Mány (Volume editor)
Katalin Fogarasi is an Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of Languages for Specific Purposes of Semmelweis University (Budapest). Dániel Mány is an Assistant Professor and Vice Director for research and Innovation at the Institute of Languages for Specific Purposes, Semmelweis University.
