Sierra A E, Bisesi M A, Rosenbaum T L, Potchen E J
Department of Radiology, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824.
Invest Radiol. 1992 Mar;27(3):236-9. doi: 10.1097/00004424-199203000-00012.
To objectively assess the linguistic complexity of radiographic reports, the authors retrospectively performed readability analysis on 10,361 reports dictated by seven attending radiologists in 1989. A commercial writing evaluation program was used to determine the Flesch-Kincaid readability index of each report. Four radiographic modalities were studied: general radiography, mammography, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Analysis of the reports demonstrated that the average readability index was consistently higher for mammography and MRI when compared with ultrasound and general radiology. Reports were categorized by radiologist and modality, and a two-way analysis of variance was performed that showed a significant difference between radiologist and modality (F = 18.6, P less than .001). To assess the relevance of this observation, 40 chest radiographic reports, randomly selected from the reports in the sample, were sent to family practitioners. The practitioners were asked to evaluate each report for clarity and the certainty of the radiologists about their findings. There was a strong negative correlation between readability and average clarity (r = -0.63, P less than .001) and readability and average certainty (r = -0.58, P less than .001). Thus, the results of this study suggest that there are differences in the linguistic complexity of radiographic reports, as measured by the readability index, among individual radiologists and different modalities. The survey data indicate that reports containing lengthy, complex sentences are viewed negatively by family practitioners and may impede effective communication between radiologists and clinicians.
为了客观评估放射学报告的语言复杂性，作者回顾性地对1989年由七位放射科主治医生口述的10361份报告进行了可读性分析。使用一个商业写作评估程序来确定每份报告的弗莱什-金凯德可读性指数。研究了四种放射成像方式：普通放射摄影、乳腺摄影、超声和磁共振成像（MRI）。对报告的分析表明，与超声和普通放射学相比，乳腺摄影和MRI的平均可读性指数一直较高。报告按放射科医生和成像方式进行分类，并进行了双向方差分析，结果显示放射科医生和成像方式之间存在显著差异（F = 18.6，P < 0.001）。为了评估这一观察结果的相关性，从样本报告中随机选取了40份胸部放射摄影报告，并将其发送给家庭医生。要求这些医生评估每份报告的清晰度以及放射科医生对其检查结果的确定程度。可读性与平均清晰度之间存在很强的负相关性（r = -0.63，P < 0.001），与平均确定程度之间也存在负相关性（r = -0.58，P < 0.001）。因此，本研究结果表明，根据可读性指数衡量，放射学报告在个体放射科医生和不同成像方式之间的语言复杂性存在差异。调查数据表明，家庭医生对包含冗长、复杂句子的报告评价不佳，并且这些报告可能会妨碍放射科医生与临床医生之间的有效沟通。
