engleski

Professional and popular terminology in official guide for insulin pump: original English vs. Croatian version

Introduction In using online medical manuals, patients that do not speak English natively are in effect “virtual immigrants”, confronted with a problem of low health literacy. Our aim was to investigate the use of diabetes key terms when the official guide for insulin pump was translated into a non-widely spoken language like Croatian. Data set and methods An official guide for insulin pump was translated by the manufacturer into Croatian and compared to its original English version for the ratio of professional and popular key diabetes terms. Analyzed professional terminology included: diabetes (Cro. dijabetes) ; blood glucose (glukoza u krvi) ; retinopathy (retinopatija) ; nephropathy (nefropatija) ; neuropathy (neuropatija) ; cardiovascular (kardiovaskularni) ; hyperglycemia (hiperglikemija) and hypoglycemia (hipoglikemija). Analyzed popular terminology included: sugar disorders (poremećaj šećera u krvi) ; blood sugar (šećer u krvi) ; eye damage (oštećenje oka) ; kidney damage (oštećenje bubrega) ; nerve damage (oštećenje živaca) ; blood system damage (oštećenje krvnih žila/srčanožilnog sustava) ; high/low levels of sugar (povišena vrijednosti šećera) and low level of sugar (niska vrijednost šećera). Results Ratio of professional vs. popular terminology was 5.8 in the English vs. 2.92 in Croatian version resulting in more professional terminology in English manual. Particular terms used more frequently in English were diabetes, blood glucose, hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. Conclusion Medical manuals often advocate the use of professional terms in addressing the patient ; in case of this guide for insulin pump it could result in less information accessibility. Most insulin pump users have good knowledge on particular terminology but highly professional language can represent a barrier to understand information.

health literacy ; diabetes ; insulin pump manual

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