Evaluate the knowledge of workers in our department of principles and standards of radiation protection Evaluate the need for an additional training in radiation protection

It’s a cross-sectional, descriptive study conducted on 36 workers in the Imaging department of Farhat Hached Hospital (Sousse, Tunisia) between April and May 2017. We collected the data with a pre-established questionnaire.

36 Workers were included in the study with a sex ratio M/F of 0.56. Participants were 6 Radiologists (16.7 %,), 6 nurses (16.7%) and 24 Radiographers (66.6%). 47.2% of the participants had more than 50 years and 41.7% had more than 25 years of experience in an imaging unit (Fig.1). Despite that the 3 fundamental principles of radiation protection (justification, optimization and individual dose limitation) are cited in the Tunisian law, only 13.9% of the participants knew them. This rate was even lower among radiographers...

Our work revealed deficiencies in the knowledge in radiation protection of professionals. These low levels of knowledge must make us reassess the initial training in the university curriculum and develop training programs for workers. It’s also important to make a national program to reorganize radiation protection system to improve efficiency of the national center of radiation protection and to improve working conditions for professionals.

(1) Tunisian Republic. Decree N°86-433 about protection against ionizing radiations. Official Journal of the Tunisian Republic of the April 11th 1986.