Establishing a benchmark for patient comfort during colonoscopy and esophagogastroduodenoscopy using the St. Paul’s Endoscopic Comfort Scale (SPECS)
Aein Zarrin, Neal Shahidi, Cherry Galorport, Hong Qian, Robert Enns, Jennifer J Telford · 2026
Read Establishing a benchmark for patient comfort during colonoscopy and esophagogastroduodenoscopy using the St. Paul’s Endoscopic Comfort Scale (SPECS) by Aein Zarrin, Neal Shahidi, Cherry Galorport, Hong Qian, Robert Enns, Jennifer J Telford (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13639355.txt.
Description
Aein Zarrin led a 2026 study setting a comfort benchmark for colonoscopy and upper endoscopy using the St. Paul's Endoscopic Comfort Scale, known as SPECS. Patient comfort is a recognized quality measure, yet no performance benchmark existed to judge it. The team first ran focus groups with patients, nurses, and physicians to agree on an acceptable comfort threshold, then applied it to procedures at St. Paul's Hospital from 2021 through 2023.
Focus groups settled on a SPECS score of three or lower as acceptable. Applying that line to 17,405 colonoscopies by eighteen physicians and 6,180 upper endoscopies by thirteen physicians, three benchmark methods converged near the same answer. The 75th percentile method gave 96.3 percent for colonoscopy and 95.9 percent for upper endoscopy, while top-performer and volume-adjusted methods landed near 97 percent. Endoscopy units get a practical target: aim for at least 96 percent of procedures at or below the comfort threshold.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Aein Zarrin, Neal Shahidi, Cherry Galorport, Hong Qian, Robert Enns, Jennifer J Telford |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 29 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |