Gunn Andrew J, Gilcrease-Garcia Brian, Mangano Mark D, Sahani Dushyant V, Boland Giles W, Choy Garry
1 Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Department of Radiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 619 19th St S, Birmingham, AL, 35249.
2 Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO.
AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2017 Jun;208(6):1262-1270. doi: 10.2214/AJR.16.17584. Epub 2017 Apr 12.
Patient perceptions of radiology reports are largely unknown. The objective of the present study is to describe our experience receiving structured feedback from patients on actual radiology reports as a means of improving reporting practices.
Eight reports (two for radiographs, two for ultrasound images, two for CT scans, and two for MR images) were randomly selected from our system for review. For each report, patients were asked to rate their level of comprehension, identify any problems in the report, and, in the free-text portion of the feedback form, indicate any questions about the report that they may have. Potentially confounding factors were also examined.
A total of 104 patients (46 men and 58 women) participated in the study (for a total of 832 evaluations). The median score for report comprehension was 2.5 (on a scale of 1-5), with the most common problems affecting comprehension identified as "unclear or technical language" (mentioned in 59.6% of evaluations) and the report being "too long" (mentioned in 10.2% of evaluations). A request for an explanation of the report in lay terms (noted in 20.1% of evaluations) was the most common request mentioned in the free-text portion of the feedback form. An inverse relationship existed between report length and patient comprehension (p < 0.001). Patients who had prior experience with their own radiology reports indicated having greater comprehension than did patients with no prior experience (p = 0.003). No correlation between the educational status and report comprehension of the patients was identified (p = 0.488).
Radiology reports are not well understood by patients, who identify technical language and the long length of reports as the most common problems affecting their comprehension. Longer reports tend to be less well understood.
患者对放射学报告的认知情况在很大程度上尚不明确。本研究的目的是描述我们从患者那里收到关于实际放射学报告的结构化反馈，以此作为改进报告撰写方式的一种手段的经验。
从我们的系统中随机选取八份报告（两份X光片报告、两份超声图像报告、两份CT扫描报告和两份磁共振图像报告）进行审查。对于每份报告，要求患者对其理解程度进行评分，指出报告中存在的任何问题，并在反馈表的自由文本部分表明他们可能对报告存在的任何疑问。还对潜在的混杂因素进行了检查。
共有104名患者（46名男性和58名女性）参与了该研究（总共进行了832次评估）。报告理解的中位数得分为2.5（满分5分），影响理解的最常见问题被确定为“语言不清楚或过于专业”（在59.6%的评估中被提及）以及报告“太长”（在10.2%的评估中被提及）。在反馈表的自由文本部分中提到的最常见请求是要求用通俗易懂的语言解释报告（在20.1%的评估中被提及）。报告长度与患者理解之间存在负相关（p < 0.001）。有过自己的放射学报告经验的患者表示比没有经验的患者理解程度更高（p = 0.## 3）。未发现患者的教育程度与报告理解之间存在相关性（p = 0.488）。
患者对放射学报告理解不佳，他们将专业语言和报告篇幅过长视为影响其理解的最常见问题。报告越长往往理解得越差。
