Radiograph report style preferences of referrers at a district general hospital in the West Midlands, England, UK

Many articles and guidelines have been published proposing suggestions for the optimal radiology report style; it is likely that different referrers will prefer different styles owing to a number of clinical variables. The aim of this study is to assess the x-ray report style preferences of referrers at a district general hospital.

This electronic survey study used convenience sampling. An email invitation was sent to all referrers who had requested imaging examinations in the six months prior to the study start date. Participants were asked their opinions on the inclusion of recommendations and advice and to indicate their preferences of mock reports with combinations of the following; short/long, in-depth/brief and paragraph/bullet points. Manual analysis was undertaken in Excel.

There were 114 participants from the identified population of 356, giving a response rate of 32%. Nearly all participants find the inclusion of recommendations and advice to be useful (n = 109, 96%). Seventy-nine participants (69.3%) request skeletal x-ray examinations, and 100 (87.7%) request chest x-ray examinations. More than half of skeletal referrers (n = 42, 53.2%) and the majority of chest referrers (n = 45, 45%) prefer reports with short sentences, brief, bullet point format.

The most preferred report style for skeletal and chest x-ray reports is short sentences, brief with bullet-point format. These findings add to the current knowledge base and provide different report style options. Tailoring report styles could optimise service users' experience depending on clinical variables and might improve reporting workflow.

Potential differences in style preferences may exist between community and hospital referrers. Consequently, focussed research regarding the report style preferences of GPs is recommended as an area for further research.