Aims and objectives
Parents play a significant role in preparing the child for a Computed Tomography (CT) examination.
Educating parents is pivotal in ensuring patient cooperation as it allows the parent to sufficiently prepare their child.
It also has the added advantage of potentially reducing parental anxiety.
By reducing the parent’s anxiety,
the patient’s anxiety can potentially be reduced prior to arrival in radiology.
This may also positively impact patient cooperation.
Parental anxiety can result from uncertainty and a lack of knowledge experienced by parents[1].
Patient information is...
Methods and materials
A prospective study was undertaken to investigate the impact of an information leaflet on parental knowledge,
anxiety and satisfaction.
A CT information leaflet for parents was designed,
which acted as the intervention for this study.
The study was conducted in two phases.
The first phase involved parents in a control group,
which did not receive the CT information leaflet.
The second phase examined parents in the study group,
who received the CT information leaflet with the CT appointment letter at least 14 days before the...
Results
Parental knowledge of CT was evaluated by comparing correct,
incorrect and ‘don’t know’ responses.
Anxiety and satisfaction were evaluated by comparing the mean rank figures for the control and study groups.
Parental knowledge of CT
The mean and median values for the correct responses for the study group were slightly higher compared to those of the control group (Figure 3).
The mean and median values for the incorrect and ‘don’t know’ responses for the study group were slightly lower than those of the control group....
Conclusion
This study highlights the need for further research into the role of information in paediatric radiology.
A significant difference in anxiety and satisfaction has been demonstrated between the control and study groups,
suggesting the information leaflet had a positive impact on parental anxiety and satisfaction.
While there were differences in knowledge between the control and study groups,
this difference was not statistically significant.
The study highlighted deficiencies in parental knowledge of CT,
which may be important in the future as consent in paediatric CT becomes...
Personal information
This work was carried out by Radiography and Medical Physics staff in Temple Street Children's University Hospital which is part of Children's Health Ireland.
Contact the author:
[email protected]
Conference attendance was part funded by the Temple Street Foundation.
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