Awareness and use of five imaging decision rules for musculoskeletal injuries: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Several validated decision rules are available for clinicians to guide the appropriate use of imaging for patients with musculoskeletal injuries, including the Canadian CT Head Rule, Canadian C-Spine Rule, National Emergency X-Radiography Utilization Study (NEXUS) guideline, Ottawa Ankle Rules and Ottawa Knee Rules. However, it is unclear to what extent clinicians are aware of the rules and are using these five rules in practice. OBJECTIVE: To determine the proportion of clinicians that are aware of five imaging decision rules and the proportion that use them in practice. DESIGN: Systematic review. METHODS: This was a systematic review conducted in accordance with the ‘Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses’ (PRISMA) statement. We performed searches in MEDLINE (via Ovid), CINAHL (via EBSCO), EMBASE (via Ovid), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Web of Science and Scopus databases to identify observational and experimental studies with data on the following outcomes among clinicians related to five validated imaging decision rules: awareness, use, attitudes, knowledge, and barriers and facilitators to implementation. Where possible, we pooled data using medians to summarise these outcomes. RESULTS: We included 39 studies. Studies were conducted in 15 countries (e.g. the USA, Canada, the UK, Australasia, New Zealand) and included various clinician types (e.g. emergency physicians, emergency nurses and nurse practitioners). Among the five decision rules, clinicians’ awareness was highest for the Canadian C-Spine Rule (84%, n = 3 studies) and lowest for the Ottawa Knee Rules (18%, n = 2). Clinicians’ use was highest for NEXUS (median percentage ranging from 7 to 77%, n = 4) followed by Canadian C-Spine Rule (56–71%, n = 7 studies) and lowest for the Ottawa Knee Rules which ranged from 18 to 58% (n = 4). CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that awareness of the five imaging decision rules is low. Changing clinicians’ attitudes and knowledge towards these decision rules and addressing barriers to their implementation could increase use. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12245-023-00555-4.