Checklists for Interpreting Chest Radiographs: A Scoping Review

Introduction

Checklists reduce time to comprehensive radiographic reports, improve quality and consistency of abnormality detection on chest radiographs.

Aim

The aim of this review was to examine and survey the scope of published research on checklists for the interpretation of chest radiographs.

Method

We conducted a search of CINAHL, Scopus, Medline Ovid, Web of Science, ProQuest, and gray literature using search terms: chest radiographs, checklist, and image interpretation. Data were extracted from 16 articles. Data was analyzed numerically and thematically.

Results

The selected studies were conducted in the United States (37.5%), the United Kingdom (25%), Australia (12%), South Africa (12%), Turkey (6%), and Israel (6%). The codes were grouped into five categories related to the use of checklists, in chest interpretation.

Conclusion

In the selected studies, reports showed that there was no checklist for chest interpretation in South Africa and no evidence supporting checklists as an interprofessional communication tool for chest interpretation. The authors of this study recommended a chest interpretation checklist should be developed for use by health care professionals practicing in resource-limited settings where radiologists are not on site.