The Interpersonal Dimension of Online Patient Forums: How Patients Manage Informational and Relational Aspects in Response to Posted Questions

The internet has revolutionised the ways in which patients acquire medical information, a development which has clearly been welcomed by patients: seeking out health information online is now the third most popular activity after internet searches and e-mail (Timimi 2012). However, it has led to concerns about the quality of the information, the ability of lay people to understand it (Gerber/Eiser 2001) as well as potential cyberchondria (Starcevic/Berle 2013). In light of these conflicting perspectives, this paper examines one such source of online information, namely, the patient forum where patients communicate with other patients about a particular medical condition. Although doctor-patient communication in the clinical situation has been extensively researched, little is known about how patient-patient communication is managed in online situations such as patient forums. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research in that relatively un-researched area by examining how patients manage relational and informational aspects of communication in online patient forums. Whilst a typical interactional structure of the patient forum exchange is question and answer, we focus on responses to questions on patient forums.This paper reports on the findings of a thematic analysis (Braun/Clarke 2006) of an online thyroid disease patient forum, investigating how interpersonal aspects are negotiated where patients share condition-related knowledge. We identify themes that relate both to informational and relational aspects as well as themes that fit under a new category which we call ‘info-relational’ as it subsumes informational and relational elements. We discuss a number of theoretical implications, which are valuable as existing health communication models and understandings of patient expertise have yet to catch up with the effects of new media such as online patient forums

Patient Information Leaflet translators in the EU : mapping the hypothetical competences of professional translators and pharmacists-cum-translators

The last decade has seen an increased focus on health communication directed at lay receivers. The many challenges associated with effective expert-lay health communication are further compounded in an EU context as written mandatory patient communication is translated into all EU languages. Despite this increased focus on easy-to-understand health communication, many studies have shown that Patient Information Leaflets (PILs), the texts which in an EU context have to accompany all medication informing us about dosage, side effects etc., are often complex, and one study has indicated that PILs translated into Danish were even more complex than their English source texts. It has been assumed that this increase in complexity during the translation process is caused by the fact that the PILs translators were mainly pharmacists. Thus, this paper reports a preliminary study showing that pharmaceutical companies use either medical professionals or translators to an almost equal extent. The hypothetical translation competences of these two groups are then mapped against the PACTE competence model, and discussed from a theoretical perspective to explore whether the difficulties in the translated PILs could be linked to the translators in view of a further empirical investigation.21 page(s

Translators of patient information leaflets: translation experts or expert translators? A mixed methods study of lay-friendliness

"A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy""February 2013"A cotutelle degree with Aarhus University, Denmark.Includes bibliographical references.1. Introduction -- 2. Understanding patient information leaflets and motivating the dissertation -- 3. Translation-theoretical chapter -- 4. Methodology -- 5. Translation competence and Danish PIL translators -- 6. PIL translation choices made by professional translators and pharmacists -- 7. Focus groups with professional translators and pharmacists -- 8. Discussion and conclusion -- 9. Lists of tables and figures -- 10. References -- 11. List of appendices.Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) are mandatory texts in the EU accompanying all medication. They must inform users about dosage, side effects, etc. in order to foster informed decision-making and patient empowerment. By its nature, the PIL genre is complex aiming at instructing lay people about complex medical content, i.e. mediation of specialized medical knowledge across a knowledge asymmetry. Legally, PILs must be “written and designed to be clear and understandable” (Article 63(2) of EU Directive 2001/83/EC, European Parliament and of the Council, 2001), here termed “lay-friendly”; however, many studies have shown that PILs are generally difficult to understand for laypeople. Askehave and Zethsen found in their 2002 study that translated Danish PILs are linguistically more complex than their English source texts. One possible explanation could be that PILs are frequently translated by pharmacists, who do not possess the linguistic tools and translation knowledge necessary for expert-to-layman translation or interlingual translation. This PhD explores this by use of a mixed methods research design involving three empirical studies: 1) The first study identifies Danish PIL translators as professional translators and pharmacists, and it maps these profiles against a model of translation competence and a literature review of research on medical translators. The outcome of this study is the hypothesis that Pharmacists – compared to professional translators - lack translation competence in relation to lay-friendly PIL translation. 2) The second study aims to explore the above hypothesis by identifying possible differences in two translation corpora of pharmacists and professional translators in terms of lay-friendliness. The analysis of the two corpora uses a contrastive linguistic framework focussing on elements such as the use of nominalization, compounds nouns and medical terminology. Results show that both corpora contain many instances of literal translation choices to the detriment of lay-friendliness and choices leading to increased complexity. However, in the pharmacist corpus, significantly more Latin-based terms and nominalizations are found than in the professional translator corpus. 3) The third study seeks to gain an understanding of the reasoning behind the translation strategies used in PILs by conducting two focus groups with professional translators and pharmacists, respectively. Results show that the lack of lay-friendliness in PILs is not mainly linked to lack of translation competence or intratextual reasons, but extensively to contextual constraints such as tight deadlines for translation, poor mandatory templates and authoritative bodies and reviewers with limited interlingual and intralingual translation knowledge.Mode of access: World wide web1 online resource (v, 333 pages

Translation and the reconfiguration of power relations : revisiting role and context of translation and interpreting

Machine generated contents note: Translating as gatekeeping -- Of Go-Betweens and Gatekeepers: Considering Disciplinary Biases in Interpreting History through Exemplary Metaphors. Military Interpreters in the Allied Coalition during the First World War / Franziska Heimburger -- Behind the Scene: Text Selection Policies in Communist Romania. A Preliminary Study on Spanish and Latin-American Drama / Roxana-Mihaela Antochi -- Institutional Constraints on Translation: Ingmar Bergman, Francoist Censorship and the "Apertura" / Rosario Garnemark -- Actors in the processes of translation -- Politiques culturelles en Roumanie postcommuniste: Place de la traduction / Irina Elena Tiron -- Translating Racist Discourse in Slovenia during the Socialist Period: Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn / Janko Trupej -- Linguistic Insights into Localisation / Dainora Maumeviciene -- The Lawyer and the Interpreter in Police Settings / Foulquie Rubio -- Constraints in multimodal translation -- The Representation of Orality in the Translation of Russian Epics / Elisa Maroni -- More Than Words: A Study of Paralinguistic and Kinesic Features of Humour in Dubbed Sitcoms / Giovanna Di Pietro -- Introducing Playful Translation: Some Notes from Backstage / Nicole Nolette -- The role of translation in a globalised world -- English as a Lingua Franca in Legal Translation: The Early Stages of a Research Project / Eduarda Melo Cabrita -- English as the Language of Science and Academic Discourse in (Non-)Translated Medical Portuguese: The Initial Stages of a Research Project / Isabel Ferro Mealha -- Patient Information Leaflet Translators in the EU: Mapping the Hypothetical Competences of Professional Translators and Pharmacists-Cum-Translators / Matilde Nisbeth Jensen -- Models of Quality Assessment for Patient Package Inserts in English and Spanish: A Review from the Translation Perspective / Raquel Martinet Motos.290 page(s

Translation of patient information leaflets : trained translators and pharmacists-cum-translators – a comparison

19 page(s