Language reference sets are used to specify the acceptability and preference for using a particular description in a specific language, dialect or clinical context. To understand the importance of Language reference sets it is necessary to be aware of the characteristics of SNOMED CT Descriptions and their representation.
Descriptions and Language Reference Set
SNOMED CT contains descriptions and each description contains both a human-readable term and some information about the term. A description is used to give meaning to a concept and provide well-understood and standard ways of referring to a concept. So, each description is associated with a specific concept, but each concept is associated to several descriptions. Additionally, the descriptions are specific to a language or dialect.
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The Language reference set is essential to enable the preferred terms to be identified for each concept. Language reference sets refers to Descriptions that is used in a particular language or dialect. For each Description referenced in the language reference set a value for the acceptability of the term associated with that Description is assigned. The values for the Acceptability attribute is represented by descendants of the concept
| Concept |
|---|
| t | 900000000000511003 | Acceptability | |
|---|
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, which is placed in the foundation metadata subhierarchy of SNOMED CT.
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Even though a concept has several descriptions of the type
| Concept |
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| t | 900000000000013009 | Synonym (core metadata concept) | |
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| ShowFormat | inline |
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related to it, the
language reference set allows automatic identification of the
. The language reference set does not contain any terms, as these are represented in the description file. Hence, it refers to descriptions by referencing the
descriptionId, and the description release file is therefore a prerequisite for retrieving the actual term when applying the
language reference set .
Field | Data type | Purpose |
|---|
| Specref |
|---|
| RefType | field |
|---|
| t | referencedComponentId |
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| SCTID | The identifier of a included in the language reference set. |
| Specref |
|---|
| RefType | field |
|---|
| t | acceptabilityId |
|---|
|
| SCTID | A of| Concept |
|---|
| t | 900000000000511003 | Acceptability | |
|---|
| ShowFormat | inline |
|---|
|
indicating whether theis acceptable or preferred for use in the specifiedor. |