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

Maria Pia di Buono


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.
Anthology ID:
2026.cl4health-1.17
Volume:
Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Patient-Oriented Language Processing (CL4Health) @ LREC 2026
Month:
May
Year:
2026
Address:
Palma, Mallorca (Spain)
Editors:
Deepak Gupta, Paul Thompson, Sophia Ananiadou, Dina Demner-Fushman
Venues:
CL4Health | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Note:
Pages:
182–189
Language:
External URL:
https://lrec.elra.info/lrec2026-ws-cl4health-17
DOI:
10.63317/27j5nmzxz6u7
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Maria Pia di Buono. 2026. Italian Medical Term Simplification: From Patient Information Leaflets to Simplified Language Resources. In Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Patient-Oriented Language Processing (CL4Health) @ LREC 2026, pages 182–189, Palma, Mallorca (Spain). ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA).
Cite (Informal):
Italian Medical Term Simplification: From Patient Information Leaflets to Simplified Language Resources (di Buono, CL4Health 2026)
Copy Citation: