‘Many of our customers are discharged patients’: A linguistic study of references to healthcare users in a Finnish pharmacy magazine

This linguistic study examines the usage and semantics of the Finnish lexemes potilas 'patient' and asiakas 'customer, client' in journalistic texts discussing matters relevant to the pharmacy profession. The theoretical framework of the analysis is cognitive linguistics, particularly frame semantics. The data were collected from articles published in a Finnish pharmacy magazine, Apteekkari, which represents the interests of proprietary pharmacists. The situational and functional semantic frames of a total of 137 occurrences of potilas ‘patient’ or asiakas ‘customer, client’ are compared. The analysis shows that the semantic frames of potilas ‘patient’ and asiakas ‘customer, client’ in Apteekkari are quite distinct. The magazine primarily uses the term potilas ‘patient’ for individuals interacting in the situational frame of a healthcare setting other than a pharmacy, or in the context of healthcare in general. However, although Finnish pharmacies also offer healthcare services, individuals interacting with pharmacies are generally referred to as asiakas ‘customer, client’, irrespective of their health status. Asiakas ‘customer, client’ is more common than potilas ‘patient’ in all functional frames of pharmacy services, including medical treatment and care. The terms customer and client may to some language users suggest a commercial and transactional rather than a caring relationship, and using the term patient in certain care-related contexts could support the recognition of pharmacists as healthcare providers. To better understand this aspect, future research should investigate perceptions of these terms among pharmacy service users and healthcare stakeholders, particularly in the context of pharmaceutical care.