Quantifying the characteristics of unambiguous chest radiography reports in the context of pneumonia

Abstract

Rationale and Objectives. The purpose of this study was to statistically identify some characteristics of unambiguous (ie, clear) chest radiography reports in the context of acute bacterial pneumonia. Materials and Methods. Seven physicians individually read 292 chest radiography reports to determine if they contained radiologic evidence of pneumonia. Unambiguous reports were defined as those that physicians unanimously classified as supporting or not supporting the diagnosis of pneumonia. Ambiguous reports were assigned degrees of ambiguity on the basis of how much disagreement they caused among the physicians. Characteristics of unambiguous reports as described in the literature were manua..