Inter-Group Agreement in Chest Radiographic Quality Assessment: Comparing Final-Year Students and Experienced Radiographers Across Three Quality Assessment Domains During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Authors

Peter O'Reilly, Dania Abu Awwad, Ernest Ekpo, Warren Reed

Published in

Journal of medical radiation sciences. Jul 27, 2026. Epub Jul 27, 2026.

Abstract

Reproducible image quality assessment (QA) by radiographers is vital to minimise inter-observer variation and reduce unnecessary repeat exposures. This study compared the consistency of chest X-ray (CXR) image quality assessments between final-year student radiographers and experienced radiographers across three distinct QA domains (positioning, sharpness and visibility) to observe skill consistency across different pathology categories.
This retrospective observational study analysed 70 de-identified CXRs acquired between May and September 2021 from patients presenting with symptoms of pulmonary infection during the COVID-19 pandemic and retrieved from the PACS archive of a tertiary teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia. Two experienced radiologists independently reviewed each case and discussed their interpretations to reach a consensus classification based on the available clinical information.
No significant differences were found between groups in any domain across the different pathology categories (p > 0.05). Bland-Altman analysis showed minimal mean variability, with students rating marginally lower and narrow 95% limits of agreement across all domains. Overall ICC values indicated good-to-excellent reproducibility (ICC = 0.90, 95% CI 0.85-0.94). These single-institution findings should be interpreted within the dataset's context.
Final-year students and experienced radiographers applied QA criteria consistently, demonstrating robust skills across different pathology categories. The small negative bias observed may reflect a more cautious interpretive approach rather than meaningful disagreement. These findings indicate that final-year radiography students demonstrate agreement with experienced radiographers in the application of structured image-quality criteria under controlled assessment conditions.

PMID:
42504574
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Jul 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.