December 9, 2003
SickKids team deciphers kids’ terms for private body parts and functions
Poombinga, bechos, boli bushushek and kalinirehem may look like gibberish to some people, but to children trying to explain themselves, they represent important things.
Effective communication between a doctor and patient is very important in diagnosing medical problems. The medically correct terms for things like private body parts (penis, testicle, vagina, buttock and breast) and certain bodily functions (vomiting, defecation and urination) aren’t easy words for children to use. Whether it’s because of parents feeling embarrassed about using these terms or the difficulty involved in pronouncing and remembering the words for young minds, parents generally choose alternative terms to refer to these things.
A research team group led by SickKids’ Dr. Dennis Scolnik has developed a listing of terms for private body parts and bodily functions used by children and parents that differs from the anatomical and physiological terms. The listing and information about the research involved is reported in the December 9 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).
“When a child visits a hospital or a clinic, and has to talk to a doctor or nurse it can be a challenge determining what the child is referring to when they use alternative terms. We wanted an inventory of terms that doctors could use when communicating with patients,” said Dr. Scolnik, a physician in the Divisions of Emergency Services and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology and associate scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children, and an assistant professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto.
In a multicultural country like Canada, these challenges are amplified in that 18 per cent of the population speaks English as a second language (according to a 2001 census). In downtown Toronto, the area served by the SickKids Emergency Department, more than 50 per cent of patients have a language other than English as a mother tongue. Doctors that come from the same cultural background as the child might understand when a child says they’ve been “making suka” they actually mean that they’ve been vomiting, but a doctor that doesn’t may be confused.
In an effort to create a list, researchers asked parents and children who came to the SickKids Emergency Department to tell them what words they use to refer to private body parts and bodily functions. After interviewing 87 patients and families, the researchers were able to create a list of alternative terms that parents and children use.
Parents and kids were shown drawings and asked to describe the body part or bodily function that they saw. The most popular alternative term for urination was pee, and poo or poop was the most common method of avoiding the word defecation. Health care professionals use the medically correct term buttocks, but most children and parents opted for bum when describing their backsides.
The researchers also wanted to know if the level of education of a parent made any difference to the use of the correct terms for the parts and functions. You might have thought that parents with more education would be more likely to use the correct medical term with their kids. However, it turned out that the parents’ level of education had no bearing on the choice of alternative vocabulary. Another important fact to emerge from the study was that some children and families used a word for one part of the body that most people used for another. This would be an essential factor to take into account when communicating with any specific family.
The SickKids team concluded that there are a variety of slang terms used by children and parents to describe private parts and bodily functions, and doctors should clarify words like these when taking a history and enhance communication with parents and children. Eventually the researchers hope that the other hospitals in other cities will create a list for their community for use in emergency rooms and clinics.
The Hospital for Sick Children, affiliated with the University of Toronto, is Canada’s most research-intensive hospital and the largest centre dedicated to improving children's health in the country. Its mission is to provide the best in family-centred, compassionate care, to lead in scientific and clinical advancement, and to prepare the next generation of leaders in child health. For more information, please visit www.sickkids.ca.
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