Effects of Patient Demographics and Examination Factors on Patient Experience in Outpatient MRI Appointments.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this article is to describe the effects of patient demographics and examination factors on patient-reported experience in outpatient MRI examinations. METHODS: This institutional review board-waived, HIPPA-compliant quality improvement study evaluated outpatient MRI appointments from March 2021 to January 2022 using a postappointment survey consisting of a 5-point emoji scale and text-based feedback. Patient demographics and examination information were extracted from electronic medical records. Ratings ≤ 3 were categorized as negative, and ratings ≥ 4 were categorized as positive. Continuous variables were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test, and categorical variables were analyzed using the Fisher's exact test. A P value less than .05 was considered significant. A natural language processing algorithm was trained and validated to categorize patient feedback. RESULTS: A total of 3,636 patients responded to the survey. Positive ratings had a higher proportion of male respondents compared with negative ratings (47.9% versus 37.0%, P = .004). Examination characteristics were also grouped by positive or negative rating. Patients who endured longer examination time (median 54.0 min versus 44.0 min, P < .001) and longer wait time after check-in (median 61.6 min versus 46.2 min, P < .001) were more likely to give negative ratings. The most common themes of free text feedback included excellent service (84.3%), on-time service (8.4%), and comfortable intravenous line placement (0.4%). Most common negative feedback included long wait times (10.5%), poor communication (8.4%), and physical discomfort during the examination (4.2%). CONCLUSION: Male gender, short examination duration, and on-time start were associated with positive patient ratings.

Association between exposure to air pollution and hippocampal volume in adults in the UK Biobank.

BACKGROUND: The hippocampus is important for memory processing. Several neuropsychiatric diseases including Alzheimer's disease are associated with reduced hippocampal volume, and further the hippocampus appears vulnerable to environmental insult. Air pollution has been associated with cardiovascular disease, abnormal brain structure, and cognitive deficits. OBJECTIVE: Because of hippocampal vulnerability to environmental insults and based on the association between exposure to air pollution and cognitive function and brain structure, we evaluated the association between exposure to toxins in air pollution and left and right hippocampal volume using brain-imaging and air-pollution data from the UK Biobank, a large community-based dataset. METHODS: We used regression modelling to evaluate the association between exposure to nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxides, PM2.5, PM2.5-10, and PM10. and left and right hippocampal volume controlling for age, sex, body-mass index, overall health, alcohol use, smoking, educational attainment, socioeconomic status, inverse distance from the nearest major road, and a measure of total brain volume. RESULTS: In these models, PM2.5 concentration was associated with smaller left hippocampal volume. None of the other measures of air pollution was associated with either left or right hippocampal volume, although interaction models provided some evidence that sex might moderate the relationship between air pollution and hippocampal volume. In adjusted models, age, sex, educational attainment, income, overall health, current smoking, alcohol intake, and body-mass index were associated with hippocampal volume. CONCLUSIONS: PM2.5 at levels found in the United Kingdom was associated with smaller left hippocampal volume. Additional associations between several covariates and hippocampal volumes indicate that hippocampal volume might be associated with several potentially modifiable variables.