The Inter-Observer Agreement Between Resident and Consultant Radiologists in Reporting Emergency Head CT Scans

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the inter-observer agreement between resident and consultant radiologists in reporting emergency head CT scans. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional retrospective study was performed in a tertiary care hospital Karachi from 1st October 2021 to 31st march 2022. Total of 111 number of patients of 18-70 years of age of either gender who underwent emergency Head CT scans were included. Patients who came for follow-up CT scans were excluded. CT findings were interpreted by the radiology resident on duty. Subsequently, these CT images were interpreted by a consultant radiologist, and the decision of both resident and faculty member CT was correlated for inter-observer agreement. Results: The mean age was 47.47 ± 14.20 years. The majority of the patients 46 (41.44%) were between 56 to 70 years of age. Out of these 111 patients, 72 (64.86%) were male and 39 (35.14%) were female with a ratio of 1.9:1. Discrepancy between resident and consultant radiologists in reporting emergency head CT scans is seen in 6 (5.41%) patients. Inter-observer agreement between resident and consultant radiologists in reporting emergency head CT scans was found to be 94.59% with a kappa “κ” value of 0.885 which showed a very strong agreement. Conclusion: This study concluded that little discrepancy was found in inter-observer agreement between the radiology residents and the faculty members for interpretation of CT images of Head.