Assessment of radiographers' knowledge about radiation doses and DRLs in computed tomography departments in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: To assess radiographers' understanding of radiation safety considering the newly approved national diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) as an optimization tool for radiation dose. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Saudi Arabia among radiographers working at local hospitals in Jeddah city from February to March 2022. The survey comprised of 22 questions involving demographic information; and general information related to radiation dose; CTDI(vol) and DRLs. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26. Chi-square test was used to compare demographic groups regarding their distribution of responses with 0.05 as the level of significance. RESULTS: A total of 169 radiographers participated in the study (39 % females, 60 % males). Most of the participants (91 %) were aware of the description of the ALARA principle. It was noted that (47 %) of the participants indicated that the routine scanning protocols are designed by the radiologists. The majority of them (78 %) were confident to manipulate the CT scanning parameters properly. In addition, half of the participants (53 %) were aware of the CTDI(vol) and DLP. Unexpectedly, none of the demographic variables were significantly associated with the radiographers’ knowledge about radiation dose, p-values are > 0.05. CONCLUSION: Although radiographers demonstrated good knowledge of radiation protection, limited awareness of DRLs was noted among radiographers and lack of implementing and optimizing the local dose of the DRLs in this study. Therefore, education and training for healthcare professionals including radiographers are necessary to enhance clinical practical performance in radiology departments.