Assessment of awareness and practice of undergraduate medical radiography students towards tele radiology

Abstract

Introduction: Tele radiology is defined as electronic transmission of radiological images from one geographical location to another for purpose of interpretation or consultation. Tele radiology is the most widely practiced form of telemedicine. Despite its successive development of tele radiology in Africa, still there are several barriers impacting expansion of tele radiology in Africa that include ability (knowledge) of technologists. Hence there is a need to assess knowledge and practices of medical radiography students (technologists) towards tele radiology. Objectives: This study was conducted to assess the awareness and practice of undergraduate medical radiography students towards tele radiology in Makerere University Methodology: A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional design was used involving 41 medical radiography students to assess their awareness and practice towards Tele radiology who were selected using Stratified Random Sampling. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire administered by the researcher and analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel into frequency tables and figures. Results were further interpreted in narratives. Results: Majority 25(60.98%) of the all respondents have received formal education or training in tele radiology hence leading majority of respondents (95.12%) to have ever heard about tele radiology. However 16(39.02%) of all respondents have never received formal education or training in tele radiology with majority 12(75%) from year 2 respondents. Majority 28(68.29%) of the participants have very low knowledge about tele radiology, 9(21.95%) of respondents have moderate knowledge about tele radiology and only 4 (9.76%) of respondents have high knowledge about tele radiology. This clearly shows that tele radiology knowledge is generally still low among the students. Majority 34(82.9%) of the respondents had never used any of tele radiology technologies or platforms with only 7(17.1%) of respondents have used tele radiology technologies or platforms of which 6(85.7%) of respondents rarely used tele radiology. Conclusion: Majority of the respondents had high level of awareness towards tele radiology which indicates its growth in Uganda since majority have received formal education or training in tele radiology while a few have not which indicate the gap in educational opportunity due to limited resources and personnel for training, overall knowledge about tele radiology is still very low of which is a theoretical knowledge which calls for more hands on workshop and training on about tele radiology.

Recommendation: Updating the radiology curriculum to include more practices tele radiology, radiology department should Invest and provide regular training sessions and workshops on tele radiology, ministry of health should allocate more funds for the development of tele radiology infrastructure and training programs.