Acessibilidade textual e terminológica clínico-medicamentosa da oncopediatria no guia Beaba do câncer

Abstract

The present study addressed textual and terminological accessibility in clinical and pharmaceutical contexts within the Guia Beaba do Câncer, a terminographic tool designed to make medical language comprehensible for children undergoing cancer treatment. The study focused on the MEDICATIONS category entries. The central research problem was to determine whether the guide's level of linguistic accessibility was sufficient for children aged 4 to 12 to understand the medical concepts presented. The initial hypothesis posited that, despite the intention of simplification, the guide's terms would not fully reach this age group, requiring higher levels of schooling for fluent comprehension. The general objective was to assess the accessibility level of the analyzed entries, verifying whether the language was appropriate for children. The specific objectives included identifying the readability indices of the texts, analyzing the structural characteristics of the definitions, and comparing the obtained results with the parameters established for children's reading comprehension. The research was theoretically grounded in Temmerman’s (2000) Sociocognitive Terminology Theory, which considers terms as dynamic units of knowledge, along with the principles of Textual and Terminological Accessibility (TTA), as proposed by Finatto (2020, 2016). This approach was further complemented by Dubay’s (2004, 2007) studies on readability and Maaß (2020), who advocates for the adaptation of specialized texts for lay audiences. Methodologically, the research employed a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach, utilizing the ALT – Análise de Legibilidade Textual (Textual Readability Analysis) software to measure readability indices such as Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, ARI, and Coleman-Liau. The corpus comprised six entries (Antibiotic, Morphine, Oxygen, Serum, Supplement and Vaccine) extracted from the guide, whose texts were subjected to lexical, syntactic, and discursive analysis. The results indicated that only the entry Oxygen achieved a readability level suitable for children from the 5th grade of elementary school. The other entries exhibited higher levels of complexity, requiring at least high school education for full comprehension. The Supplement entry stood out as the most complex, demanding university-level education for fluent reading. Thus, the research hypothesis was confirmed: the texts in the Guia Beaba do Câncer are not fully accessible to children aged 4 to 12. The study contributed theoretically and methodologically by demonstrating that the terminological adaptation of specialized texts must consider not only lexical simplification but also syntactic and discursive structures. In the social context, the findings highlight the need for reformulation of informational materials aimed at children and adolescents, ensuring greater accessibility and inclusion in health literacy.