Assessment of the Knowledge and Attitude to Radiation Safety Standards of the Radiological Staff in Damaturu, Yobe State, Nigeria

Abstract

Radiation protection and safety has been a major concern of many national and international bodies because of the potential hazardous effects associated with ionizing radiation if not properly controlled. However, no much research has been done on the compliance of Radiographers to radiation safety standards in Nigeria. In this study, we access and evaluate the level of compliance of the radiological staff in Damaturu, Yobe State using a self-structured questionnaire. The simple random sampling technique was used to collect 25 valid responses from radiographers, radiologist, technicians and other staff, corresponding to 92.86% response rate. Results show that even though the radiographers show high compliance rate to radiation safety standards, majority of the workers do not have thyroid shields and monitoring devices and since the total number of exposures given during radiography is usually not recorded, it means they are over exposing themselves as well as the patients to radiation which is not a good safety measure. However, hospital management should focus attention on providing continuous professional development programs and quality assurance programs so as to maintain good processing of X-ray films for good quality radiographs as this will reduce repeated exposures. Provision of monitoring devices and thyroid shields are of great importance.