What Do Clinical Users Know Regarding Safety of Ultrasound During Pregnancy?

Abstract

Ultrasound end users are poorly informed regarding safety issues during pregnancy. Further efforts in the realm of education and training are needed to improve end user knowledge about the acoustic output of the machines and safety issues.

Knowledge of the bio-effects of ultrasound among physicians performing clinical ultrasonography: Results of a survey conducted by the Italian Society for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (SIUMB)

“…Therefore, these results indicate that National Ultrasound Societies and Medical Universities -at least in Italy e need to increase their efforts to educate US operators on the bio-effects of diagnostic ultrasound modalities. This conclusion is in keeping with those that emerged from similar surveys conducted by Marsal [11] and more recently by Sheiner et al [12], mainly among physicians, ultrasonographers, nurses and midwives in the field of obstetrics and gynecology. Marsal conducted a questionnaire-based survey among professionals using ultrasound for fetal examinations and found that the users supposedly responsible for a Some respondents performed more than one type of ultrasound examination, so the sum of the percentages exceeds 100%.…”

New Zealand sonographers do not outperform their European or American colleagues in the knowledge of ultrasound safety

“…It should be noted that in the previous work of Marsal 1 and Sheiner, et al 2 ,. the clinical user group included sonographers, doctors, nurses and other health‐allied staff; whereas this study only included practicing sonographers or sonologists.…”

“…2). Both Marsal 1 and Sheiner, et al 2 . lamented precisely this lack of educational support for the ODS.…”

“…A nine‐point questionnaire (Table 1) was constructed based on previously published work by Marsal 1 and Sheiner, et al 2 . The survey was distributed to clinical users of ultrasound practicing sonography in Hamilton during July 2010, totalling 35 users consisting of sonographers, sonography trainees, one obstetric sonologist and one fetal medicine registrar.…”

“…For instance, only 32% of American and European users reported being familiar with the term Thermal Index (TI), and only 18% of Americans and 22% of Europeans could correctly define or describe what TI means 1 , 2 . Little is known about the level of knowledge that Australasian users have regarding ultrasound safety.…”