Differences Between Highly Rated vs Poorly Rated Patient Ratings of Radiology Reports

To evaluate differences in quantitative features between poorly versus highly rated patient ratings of radiology reports.

A HIPAA-compliant, IRB-waived study was performed from October 2019 to June 2021. Patients completed an optional 2-question survey ("How helpful was the report?" with a 5-star scale and an open text box) embedded into the patient portal, and reports were assessed for readability and brevity. Quantitative analyses were performed between poorly (≤3 stars) and highly rated (>3 stars) CT and MRI reports, including the use of structured reporting, number of words, words per sentence, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesh-Kincaid Grade level within the findings and impression sections of the radiology reports. A two-tailed nonparametric Mann U Whitney test was performed for continuous variables and Chi² for categorical variables.

Of the 490 responses, all 135 evaluating CT or MR were included (27%). 106/135 (78%) of the patients gave high ratings (score of 4 or 5). 46/135 (34%), the radiology reports were in a structured format. The proportion of highly rated reports were significantly higher for structured than freeform reports (93.5 vs. 70.8%, p = 0.002). In the findings section, highly rated reports had a lower Flesch Reading Ease score than poorly rated reports (19.6 vs. 28.9, p <0.01). No significant differences were observed between number of words (p=0.27), words per sentence (p=0.94), and Flesh-Kincaid Grade level (p=0.09) in the findings section. In the impression section, no differences were observed between highly vs. poorly rated reports among the measured parameters.

Patients preferred highly rated reports that were structured and had lower Flesch Reading Ease scores in the findings section.