Multicentre Assessment of Radiology Request Form Completion in South-West Nigeria

Abstract

An important element in the multidisciplinary approach to patient management is communications among clinicians. As most of the patients attending any hospital have to go through the department of radiology, the pattern and attitude of clinicians to the completion of radiology request forms was assessed in three teaching hospitals in the South –West of Nigeria. Availability of clinical information and demographic data were assessed in 600 radiological request forms. Name of patients (and surname) was provided in almost all the request forms except one, a victim of road traffic accident who was unconscious at presentation. The result showed that clinical information, age, hospital number, physician identity was not provided in 18.5%, 20.8%, 39.9%, and 8.7% respectively. Information on Consultant- in -charge was not included in 11.3%, while 84.2% showed no information on previous radiological examinations.
Only 4.8% of the forms were completely filled leaving 95.2% uncompleted. Generally, there were substantial lapses in the way request forms for radiological investigations were filled. The observed patterns were seen in all the centers and were found to be statistically significant and could not be attributed to chance variation. It is recommended that more attention be paid to completion of radiology request forms to assist radiologist in resolving the diagnosis faster. This will also reduce the waiting time of patients as well as their turnaround time in the hospital. Radiology departments should be involved in the orientation programs for new
house officers and resident doctors to let them know the importance of various items on the request forms.

Key words: Request forms completion, Radiology, Clinical information, Demographic data