ABSTRACT

Quality, readability and accessibility are three aspects of the patient-related dimension of medical translation related to patient safety, patient’s decisions, the quality of healthcare services, access to those services and representation in clinical trials. The quality of medical texts translated for lay recipients is closely associated with readability and accessibility; accessibility ensures that a patient can access healthcare services, while readability enables a patient to comprehend their condition, understand their treatment, and use medicines or medical devices in a safe way. This chapter is divided into three sections addressing the concepts of quality, accessibility and readability in medical translation. The first section provides an overview of the problems and definitions associated with medical translation quality, followed by approaches related to factors such as compliance with legal requirements and medical translator competence. The following section focuses on accessibility in healthcare, i.e. the overcoming of language barriers in health services. The aim of this section is to explain how access is conceptualised, how it is connected to language, and what strategies can be adopted to secure healthcare accessibility. The final section focusing on readability discusses the relevant definitions and regulations, together with an overview of studies into the readability of medical texts.