With the evolution of imaging techniques, the influx of patients to radiology departmens for performing diagnostic examinations has been increasing. The technological development allows a better diagnosis in a short time, but also has consequences such as ionizing radiation, in radiology’s case. Patients who use health services require a higher level of information from health professionals and, it’s also recognized that they don’t have enough information about the procedures used in the health care institutions. The communication between radiographers and patients is one of the...

A quantitative, descriptive and non-experimental study was performed to access the level of knowledge. A self-applied questionnaire developed by Chesson, Mckenzie and Mathers (2001) in UK was validated for the Portuguese population with permission of the authors and assigned to 143 outpatients who perfomed US (55), CT (48) and MRI (40) examinations between two healthcare providers (public and private sector). The questionnaire was divided in two sections: on for the demographics characteristics and another one composed by questions related to the examinations. The second section...

Ultrasound: Concerning Ultrasound, the study analysis shows us that most of the participants were reasonably informed about the procedure with positive results regarding the presence of the healthcare professional in the room, use of a transducer to perform the scan, communication with the healthcare professional and that they will be awake during it. Despite 43.6% of the sample knew that there was no ionizing radiation involved, 36.4% did not know if radiation would be used to perform the scan, as well as 50.9% do not...

It is possible to conclude that, generally, patients are minimally informed about general aspects regarding each scan/examination. However, when it comes to Ionizing radiation, preparation prior to the scan and specific technical details, the participants seem to be a bit less knowledgeable. As a side observation, some of the demographic factors like schooling, previous experience and search for information influenced participant’s knowledge about the three modalities studied. As a final reflection, whilst patient’s information about imaging techniques is growing, is still necessary to diffuse and...

Pedro Ferreira (BSc), Collaborator in the Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy Department, Health School - University of Algarve, Portugal. Radiographer at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Rui Almeida (MSc), Professor in the Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy Department, Health School - University of Algarve, Portugal. Radiographer in Centro Hospitalar do Algarve - Faro, Portugal. Researcher in CICS.NOVA (Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities) and Member of the Studies Center in Healthcare (CES-ESSUALG). Secretary-General of Portuguese Association of Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy...

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