Research article summary (published 30 Jan 2002):

Representations of health concepts: a cognitive perspective.

Full Abstract

OBJECTIVE:
This paper studies the differences between controlled medical vocabularies that are designed as external artifacts and the mental concepts that are inside users' heads and used by users for reasoning, decision making, diagnosis, and treatment.

DESIGN:
The major theories of concept representations developed in cognitive science were reviewed, analyzed, and compared with the major controlled medical vocabularies developed in medicine.

RESULTS:
It was found that there are significant mismatches between controlled medical vocabularies that are designed as external artifacts and the mental concepts that are inside users' heads and used by users for reasoning, decision making, diagnosis, and treatment.

CONCLUSIONS:
Controlled medical vocabularies should be designed with systematical considerations of the cognitive structures and processes of the users. Without such considerations, the designed vocabularies will not be appropriate for people because they are hard to use, although they may or may not be appropriate for machine processing.

Learn Faster Today      Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Zhang, Jiajie (J);

Affiliation: School of Health Information Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 7000 Fannin, Houston, USA. jiajie.zhang@uth.tmc.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of biomedical informatics (J Biomed Inform), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Feb; vol 35 (issue 1) : pp 17-24

Dates: Created 2002/11/05; Completed 2003/04/07; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12415723, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Attitude to Health Cognitive Science Computational Biology Concept Formation

Humans Medical Records Systems, Computerized Models, Psychological Vocabulary, Controlled

Related articles

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

• Expert knowledge, cognitive polyphasia and health: a study on social representations of homelessness among professionals working in the voluntary sector in London. 30 Aug 2007
• Neural representations of self versus other: visual-spatial perspective taking and agency in a virtual ball-tossing game. 30 May 2006
• The cognitive psychology of dissociative states. 30 Jul 2002
• The symbol detachment problem. 2 Apr 2007
• Semantic web representation of LOINC: an ontological perspective. 30 Dec 2005
• A cognitive neuroscience account of posttraumatic stress disorder and its treatment. 30 Mar 2001
• The attachment working models concept: among other things, we build script-like representations of secure base experiences. 30 Aug 2006
• Illuminating the processes of knowledge transfer in nursing. 30 Dec 2006
• The usability axiom of medical information systems. 23 Jul 2006

See 100+ related articles.

Related Article Map

Legend: - FREE Full text Article. - Abstract only. - Title only. More help.

See a large map of 100+ related articles.