Radiologic Technologists' Knowledge of And Comfort Explaining Effective Dose

To examine U.S. radiologic technologists' perceived level of knowledge of radiation effective dose, their level of comfort communicating effective dose information for common imaging procedures to patients, and their ability to compare effective doses for different medical imaging procedures.

A national cross-sectional study was conducted using a simple randomized sample of American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) members employed in radiography, computed tomography (CT), mammography, or radiology management. Survey items were created; descriptive and categorical statistics were analyzed; and relationships among knowledge of effective dose, comfort explaining effective dose, and procedural rank-order accuracy scores were evaluated with chi-square tests.

More than half (56.5%) of participants perceived themselves as knowledgeable about radiation effective dose and 67.5% were comfortable discussing radiation effective dose information with patients. More than three-quarters (75.1%) of participants achieved a rank-order accuracy score of 75% or higher. A significant relationship was found between perceived knowledge of effective dose and perceived level of comfort explaining effective dose.

Perceived knowledge of radiation effective dose, comfort explaining effective dose, and rank-order accuracy scores were higher among U.S. radiologic technologists in this study compared with similar assessments reported in the literature. However, rank-order derived methodology might not represent an in-depth assessment of radiologic technologists' radiation effective dose knowledge.

The findings demonstrate that radiologic technologists have average-to-good perceived radiation effective dose knowledge, neutral-to-good levels of comfort explaining effective dose information to patients, and, in general, can rank-order common medical imaging procedures by effective dose.