A Study on Perception by examinees of the Primary Health Care institutions about Exposure to Radioactivity

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors of perception by inpatients of the Primary Health Care institutions about exposure to radioactivity at the time of radioactive examination, providing basic information for making educational materials aimed to change their perception.Most of those patients, 65.5% responded that CT was a type of radioactive examination bringing highest exposure to radiosensitivity. Most of the subjects, 56.1% said that a body part most vulnerable to exposure to radiosensitivity was the genital gland at the time of radiosensitivity examination. And most of the participants, or 26.3% responded that they obtained information about radiation from TVs or newspapers.Among the surveyed patients, men were higher in scores for factors of the perception of radiation such as recognition of radiation, harmfulness of radiation, psychological state at the time of radioactive examination, prevention of exposure to radioactivity and necessity of radiation that women were, with statistically significant differences between the two groups.These findings suggest that it is urgently needed to develop an education program which helps patients better perceive exposure to radioactivity and that radiologists should be very careful to reduce the does of that exposure. If patients better perceive radiation, they would be less anxious and less exposed to radioactivity when receiving the radioactive examination.