Knowledge and Practices of Governmental Hospital Physicians about Health Risk of Ionizing Radiation in Gaza Governorates
Date
2009-12-22
Authors
Rania Ibraheem Al-Astal
رانيا ابراهيم الاسطل
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Al-Quds University
Abstract
Ionizing Radiation (IR) is widely used in medicine, especially in diagnostic
investigations and therapeutic procedures. It is well-known that ionizing
radiation is risky to humankind. Therefore, the benefits from carrying out
radiological investigations and therapeutic procedures should exceed its
anticipated risks. However, physicians play a role in exposing patients to this
radiation as they request these radiological examinations. So, this study has
been designed to assess the level of knowledge and practices toward ionizing
radiation risks among physicians in order to improve their practices and
subsequently to reduce patients' exposure to risks.
The study is a cross sectional one; conducted in three governmental hospitals;
Shifa, Nasser and the European Gaza Hospital. The participating physicians
were about 300 selected via a proportional stratified sampling procedure. The
administrative and ethical considerations were taken into account. A selfadministered
questionnaire was distributed to the selected physicians and 210
completed the questionnaire with a response rate of 70%.
Using a scoring system for assessing knowledge, the study findings indicate
that physicians' knowledge towards IR risks was relatively low (less than 56
%). Only 14% of them had a high knowledge in this regard. Regarding
physicians' practices, although it was slightly higher their knowledge (58%),
still it was relatively low. Only 24% of physicians reported appropriate
practices. Additionally, the study showed that there are no statistically
significant variations in knowledge and/or practices among participants in
relation to age, education and place of work. Moreover, there are no
statistically significant variations in neither the knowledge nor the practices
among the study subjects in reference to work related factors including; years
of experience, experience in radiology department, type of specialty and
department. In contrast, participants who use x-ray in therapeutic interventions
(guidance) reported more appropriate practices than their counterparts who do
not and the variation among the two groups were statistically significant (P
value less than 0.05).
According to the results, increasing the knowledge of physicians about IR risks
and training them about radiation protection are priority issues. Also
developing an imaging protocol to help physicians to promote standardized safe
practices is a serious responsibility of the decision makers