Nuclear Medicine Radiation Risk: Patients' Perceptions and Concerns

Objectives: In the United States, the frequency of diagnostic radiologic examinations has increased almost 10-fold between 1950-2006 and the U.S. per-capita annual effective dose from medical procedures has increased about 6-fold from 0.5 mSv in 1980 to 3.0 mSv in 2006.^[1] This has led to more patient awareness and sensitivity to radiation risks. However, patient perceptions and concerns regarding radiation risks vary widely.^[2] The objective of our study is to conduct a survey assessment of patients’ perceptions and concerns regarding Nuclear Medicine radiation risks before and after an educational intervention. The hypothesis is that patients’ self-assessed knowledge about radiation risks will improve and their concerns will diminish given brief educational material. If this is statistically shown to be valid, then radiation risk education material could be provided for patients to educate them and help alleviate their concerns.

Methods: After obtaining an exemption letter from our Institutional Review Board, a prospective survey study was conducted on a cohort of 80 patients undergoing Nuclear Medicine studies between NOV 2016 and DEC 2016. During the check-in process, patients were given a voluntary survey pamphlet to be completed and returned to an anonymous collection box. The following 4 questions were initially answered on the pamphlet: (1) Male or Female (2) Age range (18 to 29; 30 to 39⋯; 60 or over) (3) On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate your KNOWLEDGE about the radiation risks of today’s Nuclear Medicine study? (1-Poor 2-Fair 3-Good 4-Very Good 5-Excellent) (4) On a scale of 1 to 5, how CONCERNED are you about the radiation risks of today’s Nuclear Medicine study? (1-Extremely worried 2-Moderately Worried 3-Somewhat Worried 4-Slightly Worried 5-Not Worried) After answering the above questions, a brief information section of the pamphlet was read by the patients educating them on Nuclear Medicine radiation risks. After this educational intervention, 2 follow-up questions were answered which mirrored the pre-educational questions: (5) Having read the information section, how would you now rate your KNOWLEDGE about radiation risks of today’s study? (1 to 5 scale as above) (6) How CONCERNED are you now about radiation risks of today’s study? (1 to 5 scale as above)

Results: Of the 80 patients in our cohort, 42 (52%) were males and 38 (48%) were females. The age range of our cohort was as follows: 6 (7.5%) were 18 to 29 years old; 10 (12.5%) were 30 to 39; 9 (11.3%) were 40 to 49; 13 (16.3%) were 50 to 59; and 42 (52.5%) were 60 years or older. These demographics are summarized in CHARTS 1 and 2 below: The possible responses on the KNOWLEDGE and CONCERN questions were on a 1 to 5 ordinal Likert scale as detailed in METHODS section. Since the objective of the study was to statistically test the hypothesis that educational material will improve patient radiation risk knowledge and diminish their concern, a pre-post analysis using Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test was performed on median values of responses with the corresponding p-values. The range of responses varied from 1 to 5 for both the KNOWLEDGE and CONCERN questions. The median results are summarized in TABLE 1 below with statistically significant p-values of less than 0.005 for both KNOWLEDGE and CONCERN questions:

Conclusion: Statistical analysis of our 80 patient survey results show that patients’ self-assessed KNOWLEDGE improved after educational intervention from a median value of 3 (Good Knowledge) to 4 (Very Good Knowledge). Additionally, patients’ self-assessed CONCERNS improved from a median value of 4 (Slightly Worried) to 5 (Not Worried) after educational intervention. Therefore, the survey data supports our hypothesis that given brief educational material, patients’ self-assessed knowledge about radiation risks will improve and their concerns will diminish. Our findings support the idea of providing patients radiation risk educational material to improve their knowledge and diminish their concerns. RESEARCH SUPPORT: None.

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