Introduction: Patients presents to the emergency department commonly with complaints of right upper quadrant pain. Ultrasound is widely used in diagnosis; thus, emergency physicians should be able to interpret bedside ultrasound results for optimal patient management and outcomes. Aim: This study aimed to determine the diagnostic accuracy between emergency and radiology physicians in patients complaining of right upper quadrant pain in Bahrain Defense Force Hospital, Kingdom of Bahrain. Methods: Following a one-day abdominal ultrasound skills workshop, 10 emergency physicians performed bedside ultrasound examinations on patients presenting with right upper quadrant abdominal pain at the emergency department. The emergency physicians’ diagnoses were compared with those of the radiology department. Results: The emergency physicians had 62.5% accuracy. In 9 cases, they had 100% accuracy and 6 got the lowest accuracy (37.5%–50%). Regarding the ultrasonographic findings, the highest accuracy (over 80%) was in detecting gallstones and the lowest (67.3%) was for distended gallbladder. The physicians could identify over 80% of the cases accurately. Conclusion: The ability of emergency physicians to perform and identify the ultrasound within a short training period raised the need for more professional training courses to improve the outcome by reducing the time needed for diagnosis and initiating management and treatment.
Keywords: Abdominal pain, Radiologists, Bahrain, Cross-sectional studies, Surveys and questionnaires