Assessment of patient attitude to the involvement of students in radiographic examinations in hospitals

Thesis Abstract

Patients’ consent to being part of the education of Medical Radiography is often taken for granted hence formal consent is not always sought during teaching and patients are sometimes not aware that they are going to be used for teaching activities. Some students of Radiography are not even aware of patients’ right to privacy when they come for radiographic examinations. This study aims to assess the reaction or attitude of patients to the involvement of students in radiographic examinations. A survey was conducted using a manual questionnaire tailored to suit the purpose of this study; data collected from patients from the three university teaching hospitals in Enugu namely UNTH, NOHE and ESUTH (N=99) was statistically analyzed. The results show that 22.2% of the patients have been examined by student radiographers without the supervision of a radiographer. Also 47.5 percent of the respondents are would be afraid to be examined by student radiographers without supervision, while 34.3% would be embarrassed if they are examined by students of the opposite gender. This indicates that students should be well supervised during radiographic examination of patients and that care should be taken to ensure patient privacy to avoid embarrassment.