Assessment of agreement between general practitioners and radiologists as to whether a radiation exposure is justified.

The objective of this study was to assess agreement between General Practitioners (GPs) and Consultant Radiologists as to whether a radiation exposure is justified and whether a request conforms to the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) guidelines. Three GPs and three Consultant Radiologists were asked to review 100 requests for plain film imaging from GPs and to state whether the request justified a radiation exposure and whether the request conformed to RCR guidelines. It was discovered that there is greater agreement between radiologists than between GPs; this is a consistent pattern. The best agreement was between two Consultant Radiologists using the RCR guidelines. The poorest was between GPs using the request form details. It is suggested that the guidelines should be symptom-based to improve efficacy.