Performance testing of personal dosemeters from eleven dosimetry services in Sweden

The Swedish regulation, SSI FS 98:5, requires that radiological workers of category A use dosemeters from an approved personal dosimetry service. The 11 services operating in Sweden at the moment use five different types of dosemeter. All have been tested for their ability to determine Hp(10) and some of them to determine Hp(0.07) according to the European Commission report Radiation Protection 73, EUR 14852, of 1994. The five unique systems have been tested regarding the angular and energy dependence of the response of the dosemeters. The test points for the determination of Hp(10) are all, except one, within the trumpet curve and for the unique systems it is shown that the uncertainty related to angular response at three different energies is within the required +/- 40% except for the lowest X ray quality 40 kV. The energy dependence dominates over the directional dependence and the choice of radiation quality for calibration is of great importance for the system performance.