Development and validation of a screening tool for the identification of inappropriate transthoracic echocardiograms
DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: The study was performed in 2 major hospitals in Tasmania. 2 reviewers created a questionnaire based on 4 questions most commonly associated with RA (suspected endocarditis with no positive blood cultures or new murmur, lack of cardiovascular symptoms or no change in clinical status or cardiac examination, routine surveillance and previous TTE within a year) in a derivation cohort of 814 patients. This was prospectively applied to 499 TTEs to calculate sensitivity and specificity for prediction of RA, and validated in the external group (n=880).
RESULTS: Of 499 prospective TTEs, the questionnaire selected 18% requests as being potentially RA. As 7.4% were actually RA (κ 89%), the sensitivity and specificity of the questionnaire were 84% and 87%, respectively. In the external validation cohort, the model found 11% requests needed to be screened for appropriateness with a sensitivity and specificity of 80% and 95%.
CONCLUSIONS: A questionnaire based on 4 questions detects a high proportion of RA TTE, and could be used for audit.
History
Publication title
BMJ OpenVolume
6Issue
10Article number
e012702Number
e012702Pagination
1-8ISSN
2044-6055Department/School
Menzies Institute for Medical ResearchPublisher
B M J GroupPlace of publication
United KingdomRights statement
Copyright 2016 BMJ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Repository Status
- Open