Greta Grauzinyte¹, Vaiva Jievaltaite¹, Domas Golubickas²
¹ Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Medical Academy, Faculty of Medicine ² Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Medical Academy, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Radiology
ABSTRACT
Background and aim. Imaging tests become one of the main human-made ionizing radiation sources in these days. Computed tomography (CT) performed within one year could cause more than 29,000 oncological diseases in the future. Further, high dose of radiation could cause acute sickness, infertility or immune system suppression. It is always important to know community and medical staff knowledge level of radiation to improve the current situation. Methods. Questionnaire was prepared by researchers using published data in this field. The ratio of correct answers to all questions was converted to the percentage and data was processed by using SPSS 24 (Mann Whitney, Pearson Chi square, Kruskal-Wallis tests). Results. 184 volunteers were surveyed. The average of respondents results was 67.5 %. The average of correct answers in female group was 66.4% and in male group was 70.9%. Knowledge of female and male did not show statistically significant difference. 75.5% know that X-ray involve radiation and 69.6% of participants know that CT involve it as well. Respondents related to radiology and medical physicians statistically had equal knowledge level. Also, 50.0% of respondents were informed or had information about radiation before radiological tests from different sources. There was no statistically significant difference between subjects who were informed about medical radiation and those who were not informed. Conclusions. There is no difference between females and males, medical physicians and radiologists, informed and uninformed persons knowledge about ionizing radiation. 75.5% know that X-ray involve radiation and 69.6% of participants know that CT involve it as well. Unfortunately, half of participants state that never were informed about ionizing radiation. Keywords: ionizing radiation, knowledge, patients knowledge, physicians knowledge.