Knowledge and worry following review of standard vs patient-centered pathology reports (2 January 2025)

Summary

The immediate release of test results to patients via patient portals is required. However, pathology reports contain complex medical terminology, are not written for patients and are often read by patients before discussion with a healthcare professional. Whether patients can extract relevant diagnostic knowledge from these reports is unclear. To address this challenge, US researchers have designed patient-centred pathology report (PCPR) formats, which present the most important clinical data from the pathology report in plain language. Pathologists can generate PCPRs as a supplement to their standard report using a template in a few minutes. However, no previous study has directly compared PCPRs with standard report formats in current use. This study compared diagnosis knowledge and worry among adults presented with different formats of prostate biopsy reports.