Romanian students’ knowledge on radiation protection

Since March 2022, Romania has become a country in the vicinity of a military conflict (there are 649 km border between Romania and Ukraine). As the Russian Federation threatens with using its nuclear arsenal against Ukraine or NATO member states, the risk the Romanian population to be exposed to high radioactivity levels (including radioactive iodine) has to be taken into consideration. In this context, in April 2022 the Romanian Ministry of Health decided to provide iodine tablets to all people under the age of 40; it also launched a public information campaign aimed to advise people on how to avoid radiation exposure, including how to take iodine tablets. One year after this campaign, we evaluated the students’ knowledge on potassium iodide (KI) administration. A number of 828 students (in Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Sciences, Electronics, and Philology), 68% females, aged 20-24 years, answered a 12-item questionnaire on KI administration. The results show 78.3% of the subjects associated KI administration with a nuclear accident/use of nuclear weapons; about 70% knew they can have KI from the pharmacist's using a prescription from the general practitioner. Only 38.6 % of the students correctly mentioned the age of KI administration; 41.1% knew a single dose administration is necessary. About 63% of the respondents knew KI is necessary to protect the thyroid; 53.1% mentioned thyroid cancer as the risk of KI non-administration. As expected, most correct answers were given by students in health-care specialties, while the less correct - by students in Philology (p < 0.001). Surprisingly, best informed medical students were respondents from Nursing, followed by those in Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry (p < 0.01). Even students are considered a well-informed population group, the results indicate more than half of the subjects miss important information concerning radiation exposure attitude. KEY MESSAGES: • Nowadays nuclear weapons use is a threat everybody should be aware of. • Information is an essential tool to make people able to protect themselves against radiation exposure.