Communicating results of diagnostic mammography: What do patients think?

Rationale and Objectives. The purpose of this study was to investigate wome n's preferences for who (radiologist or referring physician) should communi cate the results of diagnostic mammography. Materials and Methods. Data from 153 women presenting to two sites for diag nostic mammography between February and June 1995 were collected with a 24- item, self-administered, closed-ended survey. For both normal and abnormal hypothetical results, contingency tables with chi (2) tests and multiple lo gistic regression were used to determine the association, if any, between w omen's characteristics and their preferences. Results. Women undergoing diagnostic mammography preferred that their radio logists disclose their normal (90%) and abnormal (88%) mammogram results to them immediately after their examination, rather than have their referring physicians disclose results at a later time. In the case of normal finding s, women whose regular physicians were specialists were less likely to want to hear first from their radiologists (odds ratio [OR] = 0.06; 95% confide nce interval [CI] = 0.01, 0.77; P = .03), but women who were nervous about learning their results were more likely to want to hear first from their ra diologists (OR = 4.5; 95% CI = 1.2, 17.3; P = .03). Conclusion. Radiologists may want to consider assessing women's preferences for who communicates their mammogram results, as most women in this study preferred to hear these results from their radiologists rather than waiting to hear from their referring physicians.