Radiation Protection: What do the Nigerian Paediatric Residents Know?

Abstract

Knowledge of radiation protection is pertinent to the paediatric doctor as some radiological investigations requested for a sick child use ionizing radiation with some deleterious effect in the future. A sound knowledge will help the doctor to make the right and appropriate choice of radiological investigations in this age group. This was a questionnaire-based prospective study involving 89 paediatric resident doctors who came for an update course at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. Thirty-nine (43.8%) of the 89 were males and 50 (56.2%) were females. The mean age of the study population was 34.0 ± 4.6 years (range 25 - 51 years).  Majority of the study participants 78 (87.6%) had been in residency training for at least 6 years. Eighty (90.0%) of the respondents had poor knowledge of radiation protection, 7 (8.0%) had the fair knowledge, 1 (1.0%) each had good knowledge and excellent knowledge respectively. A lower proportion of male residents (36, 45%) demonstrated a lower level of knowledge of radiation protection compared to their female counterparts (44, 55%) although the difference was not statistically significant. Those younger in the residency training had poorer knowledge of radiation protection compared with the older residents. The level of knowledge was not associated with the previous lecture on radiation protection or the geopolitical location of the resident doctor. In conclusion, this study has documented the level of knowledge of radiation protection among resident doctors training in paediatrics in Nigeria.