Addition of Lay Language Comments in Placental Pathology Reports Increases Provider Understanding and Comfort

Placental pathology reports may contain terminology that obstetric providers do not feel comfortable discussing with their patients.

To determine if lay language comments appended to the placental pathology report increase provider comfort and understanding of the report.

We drafted a priori lay language comments explaining the major pathologic findings in the placenta. To test the acceptability and value of the comments, we designed an anonymous and randomized survey aimed to assess provider understanding of the terminology in the pathology report and comfort with explaining the report to their patients. Survey respondents were randomly assigned to receive 2 hypothetical placental pathology reports, one with and one without lay language comments. Respondents were asked to rate their understanding and comfort level explaining the report to their patients on a scale of 1 to 4. Within-provider differences in understanding and comfort by report type and pathology type were assessed by using repeated measures analysis of variance.

Thirty-one providers responded to the survey. Providers reported greater complete understanding of the report when reading the report with lay language comments as compared to the report without the comments (mean comfort of 3.5 for lay language versus 2.97 for original report, P < .001), as well as greater comfort with the report (mean comfort of 3.29 for lay language versus 2.81 for original report, P = .002). There was no difference in provider understanding or comfort by the pathology findings represented (P = .66).

Our survey results indicate that the inclusion of lay language comments in the placental pathology report can improve provider understanding of the placental findings and therefore improve their comfort when discussing the findings with a patient and considering future treatment options.