Keywords:
Education and training, Radiation safety, Equipment, Conventional radiography, Radioprotection / Radiation dose, Radiographers, Paediatric
Authors:
A. Maguire, K. Matthews; Dublin/IE
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-3096
Methods and materials
Following ethical review and approval of the research proposal,
an online questionnaire was administered to 22 imaging departments across Ireland which have a reasonable paediatric caseload.
These 22 clinical sites (Table 1) are considered to be the focus of future development of paediatric services in Ireland [7]. The hospitals included three tertiary referral paediatric hospitals,
three neonatal hospitals and a range of general hospitals of varying size.
The questionnaire sought details of overall departmental practice and therefore one appropriate radiographer from each site could answer on behalf of the department.
Questions addressed hospital demographics (Fig. 1),
the range of beam filtration used for paediatric examinations (Fig. 2) and influences that affect the use of such beam filtration (Fig. 3).
Radiographer opinions about the dose,
image quality and exposure considerations associated with beam filtration were sought in a series of questions requiring a Likert scale response.
In addition,
respondents were invited to add deeper detail in open response questions.
All survey responses were coded and transcribed to an Excel spreadsheet to facilitate summary and analysis of data.
Questions generated both quantitative and qualitative data in responses.