Table 2.

 Coding scheme for types of medical words

Type of medical words	Definition
Drug names	Drug names (e.g. prednisone, ibuprofen) Natural substances used as a drug (e.g. ‘taking oestrogen’)
Diseases and disease processes	Names of diseases or conditions (e.g. diabetes, arthritis, Raynaud’s) Adjectives derived from diseases (e.g. arthritic, diabetic, rheumatoid) Growths or malformations in the body (e.g. tumour, cyst)
Parts of the body	Body parts (e.g. coccyx) Body products not symptomatic of disease (e.g. blood, urine, oestrogen) Adjectives placing diseases/problems in the body (e.g. endometrial)
Symptoms	Adjectives or nouns used to describe symptoms/problems (e.g. bluish, diarrhoea, convulsions, inflammation)
Treatments or medical procedures	Non‐drug treatment modalities (e.g. splints, acupuncture) Medical procedures, operations, interventions (e.g. arthrogram, appendectomy, caesarean, hospitalization)
Names of medical specialties	Types of doctors (e.g. gynaecologist) Specialties (e.g. rheumatology)
Other	Words that do not fit in any of the above categories (e.g. alignment, anti‐inflammatory, borderline, convalescent, cuff, depressant, diagnosed, dosage, follow‐up, invasive, non‐steroidal, prognosis, recurrence)