Communicating radiation dose in medical imaging: How to best inform our patients?

Abstract

Background The newly adopted European directive DE59/2013 mandates adequate patient information in procedures involving ionising radiation. Patient interest in knowing about their radiation dose and an effective communication method for dose exposure remain poorly investigated. Purpose This study is aimed at investigating both patient interest in radiation dose and an effective method to communicate radiation dose exposure. Material and methods The present analysis is based on a multi-centre cross-sectional data collection involving 1,084 patients from four different hospitals ‒ two general and two paediatric hospitals. Anonymous questionnaires were administered, consisting of an initial overview of radiation use in imaging procedures, a patient data section, and an explanatory section providing information in four modalities. Results 1009 patients were included in the analysis, with 75 refusing participation; 173 participants were relatives of paediatric patients. Initial information provided to patients was considered comprehensible. The information modality with symbols was considered the most readily understandable format by patients, with no appreciable differences in comprehension attributable to social or cultural background. The modality including dose numbers and diagnostic reference levels was preferred by patients with higher socio-economic background. The option ‘None of those’ was selected by one-third of our sample population, composed of four different clusters: female, over 60 years old, unemployed, and from low socio-economic backgrounds. Conclusions This study demonstrated a high level of interest amongst patients in knowing about radiation dose exposure. Pictorial representations were well understood by patients from a variety of different ages and education levels. However, a universally comprehensible model of communicating radiation dose information remains to be elucidated.

Understanding Patient Knowledge and Participation in Radiological Examinations: A Study on Women of Childbearing Age

“…This fact may be due to the difficult translation of technical language by Healthcare Professionals, into a clear language that is simple to understand [23,28,38]. This difficulty may translate into a misunderstanding of the information transmitted and increase the degree of confusion between the previous information that the user already had and the new information provided [23,28,38]. This difficulty is observed in this study and in practice in the responses given by the sample.…”

“…In this study, it was possible to accept that a percentage of 29.3% of the participants reported difficulty understanding the information provided. This fact may be due to the difficult translation of technical language by Healthcare Professionals, into a clear language that is simple to understand [23,28,38]. This difficulty may translate into a misunderstanding of the information transmitted and increase the degree of confusion between the previous information that the user already had and the new information provided [23,28,38].…”

“…While the risks of radiation from medical imaging are generally low for adults, it is still important to understand the potential effects on the developing fetus [17,18]. Some previous studies [19][20][21][22][23] had noted this knowledge gap or very basic/reduced knowledge at the level of radiology, as well as low levels of communication between Healthcare Professionals and users. Topics such as identifying exams that use ionizing radiation (do not identify CT as an exam that uses ionizing radiation [19,20] or do not consider that the dose level associated with this exam is higher than that of radiography [19][20][21]), the risks associated with exposure to ionizing radiation [19,20], radiation doses, and radiological protection measures [21,22] prove to be points that represent the greatest difficulties of the studied samples.…”