Inter-Group Agreement in Chest Radiographic Quality Assessment: Comparing Final-Year Students and Experienced...

Area of Science:

• Radiological Sciences
• Medical Imaging Quality Assurance

Background:

• Reproducible image quality assessment (QA) by radiographers is crucial for minimizing inter-observer variation and reducing repeat exposures.
• This study addresses the consistency of QA in chest X-ray (CXR) imaging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the consistency of CXR image quality assessments between final-year student radiographers and experienced radiographers.
• To evaluate skill consistency across positioning, sharpness, and visibility domains, considering different pathology categories.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective observational study of 70 de-identified CXRs from patients with pulmonary infection symptoms.
• Analysis of assessments by final-year student radiographers and experienced radiographers.
• Chest X-rays were acquired from a tertiary teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in QA assessment were found between student and experienced radiographers across all domains and pathology categories (p > 0.05).
• Bland-Altman analysis revealed minimal mean variability, with students showing slightly lower ratings but narrow limits of agreement.
• Overall, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) values indicated good-to-excellent reproducibility (ICC = 0.90).

Conclusions:

• Final-year radiography students consistently apply QA criteria, demonstrating skills comparable to experienced radiographers.
• The observed minor bias suggests a more cautious approach by students rather than disagreement.
• These findings support the effectiveness of radiography training in developing structured image quality assessment skills.