Abstract
Background: lack of knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 and radiation safety among healthcare professionals will adversely affect their health and the patients’ safety due to unnecessary radiation exposure and rapid spread of COVID-19. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the knowledge and the awareness of both domains; COVID-19 and radiation awareness in one survey study.
Materials and Methods: A prospective cross-sectional online survey study was conducted among UAE healthcare professionals. The survey questionnaire included two sections; knowledge and awareness level of COVID-19 disease and radiation safety awareness.
Results: A total of 254 participants agreed to participate in the study, with the majority of them were females (70%) and average age of 37. Most of the respondents scored more than 76% in both sections (COVID-19 & radiation safety). According to the job title of the participants, the pharmacy job category scored higher than the other jobs for COVID-19 section while the radiology job category scored higher than the other jobs for the radiation knowledge section (P<0.05). There was a significant correlation between work experience, COVID-19 scores and Radiation awareness scores (r=0.18, r=0.16, P<0.05, respectively). Linear regression analysis showed that job title and received awareness sessions among other factors can significantly predict the COVID-19 and the radiation safety awareness levels (P<0.05).
Conclusion: The overall knowledge and awareness levels of the COVID-19 and radiation safety are acceptable. However, more radiation safety awareness sessions are recommended with an emphasis on the MRI subject.
Keywords
COVID-19, Radiation safety, Awareness, Healthcare, Imaging