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. 2021 May:138:109621.
doi: 10.1016/j.ejrad.2021.109621. Epub 2021 Mar 1.

Chest CT in COVID-19 patients: Structured vs conventional reporting

Arnaldo Stanzione  1 , Andrea Ponsiglione  1 , Renato Cuocolo  2 , Mariateresa Rumolo  1 , Marika Santarsiere  1 , Riccardo Scotto  3 , Giulio Viceconte  3 , Massimo Imbriaco  1 , Simone Maurea  1 , Luigi Camera  1 , Ivan Gentile  4 , Arturo Brunetti  1
Affiliations

Chest CT in COVID-19 patients: Structured vs conventional reporting

Arnaldo Stanzione et al. Eur J Radiol. 2021 May.

Abstract

Purpose: To assess clinician satisfaction with structured (SR) and conventional (CR) radiological reports for chest CT exams in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, objectively comparing both reporting strategies.

Method: We retrospectively included 68 CTs (61 patients) with COVID-19. CRs were collected from the digital database while corresponding SRs were written by an expert radiologist, including a sign checklist, severity score index and final impressions. New CRs were prepared for a random subset (n = 10) of cases, to allow comparisons in reporting time and word count. CRs were analyzed to record severity score and final impressions inclusion. A random subset of 40 paired CRs and SRs was evaluated by two clinicians to assess, using a Likert scale, readability, comprehensiveness, comprehensibility, conciseness, clinical impact, and overall quality.

Results: Overall, 19/68 (28 %) and 9/68 (13 %) of CRs included final impressions and severity score, respectively. SR writing required significantly (p < 0.001) less time (mean = 308 s; SD ± 60 s) compared to CRs (mean = 458 s; SD ± 72 s). On the other hand, word count was not significantly different (p = 0.059, median = 100 and 106, range = 106-139 and 88-131 for SRs and CRs, respectively). Both clinicians expressed significantly (all p < 0.01) higher scores for SRs compared to CRs in all categories.

Conclusions: Our study supports the use of chest CT SRs in COVID-19 patients to improve referring physician satisfaction, optimizing reporting time and provide a greater amount and quality of information within the report.

Keywords: Conventional report; Radiology report quality; Standardization; Structured report.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic version of the structured template embraced in this study for reporting HRCT scans in patients affected by COVID-19.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The complete questionnaire sent to the referring physicians for the subjective evaluation of radiology reports.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Average score (with error bars) assigned by each clinician to the paired conventional and structured reports.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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