Italian medical language: A corpus-based study on patient information leaflets

Abstract

This study examines Patient Information Leaflets' linguistic and textual features (PILs) in Italian language, focusing on their readability, comprehensibility, and effectiveness. PILs, essential documents accompanying medications, are regulated by stringent legal standards to ensure safety and usability. Despite their critical role, PILs often fail to meet the needs of diverse patient demographics, particularly in terms of accessibility and understanding. The analysis identifies structural, lexical, and syntactical challenges inherent in PILs, highlighting the tension between their dual function as informational tools for patients and precautionary legal instruments for pharmaceutical companies. Drawing on a corpus-based methodology, the research analysed 120 PILs across various medical domains (e.g., cardiovascular, dermatological, gastrointestinal), assessing parameters such as word count, syntactic complexity, and the use of specialized terminology. Key findings reveal a lack of uniformity in language use, with frequent reliance on medical jargon, collateral technicalities, and nominalizations that hinder comprehensibility. Additionally, readability indices such as GULPEASE and READ-IT indicate significant challenges for audiences with limited education, as many PILs scored below thresholds for adequate comprehension. The study concludes by addressing the sociolinguistic implications of health communication, recognizing PILs as pivotal to bridging gaps in health literacy and fostering equitable access to medical information. This research contributes to the field of medical linguistics by providing insights into the challenges of specialized communication and proposing strategies for enhancing the usability of health-related texts.