Italian Medical Term Simplification: From Patient Information Leaflets to Simplified Language Resources

Abstract

Terminological simplification in patient information leaflets (PILs) is implemented through a variety of linguistic strategies. Although these strategies help improve text comprehensibility, their overall impact remains limited. The complexity of PILs is still influenced by multiple factors, including frequent cross-referential terminology, the presence of subordinate clauses, lengthy sentences, and the use of domain-specific terms. This paper introduces I-MTS (Italian Medical Term Simplification), the first resource specifically developed for medical term simplification in Italian. I-MTS is designed to support research on lexical simplification and to facilitate the automatic adaptation of medical texts for non-expert audiences, thereby enhancing the readability and accessibility of health information in Italian.

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