Radiographers' perception on task shifting to nurses and assistant nurses within the radiography profession

Area of Science:

• Radiography
• Healthcare Management
• Nursing Practice

Background:

• The radiography profession faces challenges including increased responsibilities and a shortage of qualified radiographers.
• Task shifting is a strategy to address healthcare workforce demands.
• Understanding radiographer perceptions is crucial for implementing task shifting effectively.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate radiographers' perceptions of nurses and assistant nurses performing tasks traditionally done by radiographers.
• To assess attitudes towards task shifting in a Swedish radiography context.

Main Methods:

• An electronic questionnaire was distributed to 65 radiographers across eleven Swedish hospitals.
• Respondents rated their agreement with task shifting on a five-point Likert scale.
• Data were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U test in SPSS.

Main Results:

• A majority of radiographers (72% for nurses, 65% for assistant nurses) had negative perceptions of task shifting.
• Negative attitudes were prevalent for technical tasks like mammography and interventional radiography.
• More positive attitudes were observed for tasks such as patient preparation and calculating glomerular filtration rate.

Conclusions:

• Most radiographers expressed negative attitudes towards task shifting to nurses and assistant nurses.
• Radiographers were more amenable to shifting patient care and administrative tasks than technical radiography tasks.