Philippine E-Journals

Experience and Challenges Encountered by the Radiologic Technologists During Chest X-ray Examination of Toddlers in Selected Private Hospitals in Batangas Province

Rose Virginia Anda | Monica Yvette Sapin | Ashley Mae Sison | Celderine Velasco

Discipline: health sciences (non-specific)

 

Abstract:

Obtaining images of patients aged 0 to 16 years old has its own diagnostic radiology specialty known as "pediatric imaging”. Toddlers are susceptible to illnesses such as colds, coughs, and cardiac conditions, which may require chest X-ray examinations for accurate diagnosis. This study aimed to know the experiences, challenges, and approaches of radiologic technologists in selected private hospitals in Batangas City. Descriptive design and inferential statistics were employed in the study to determine if there are significant differences in challenges when radiologic technologists are grouped by age and gender. 95 radiologic technologists who had chest x-ray examinations on toddlers were selected as respondents using purposive sampling. A self-made questionnaire was utilized as a data collection tool. Results show that respondents were aged 22 to 47 years old, and mostly women. According to the radiologic technologists, gaining cooperation of toddler patients during examination is challenging compared to infants, teenagers, and adult patients. The challenges they often encounter are toddlers’ fear of strangers, toddlers’ distraction, toddlers’ being afraid of equipment, motion blur, and toddlers having low pain tolerance. Given the challenges, it is revealed that having a child-friendly room, having extra patience, touching the toddler gently, and having good communication skills, depending on the age, helps them to lessen the problems. Furthermore, it is revealed that the challenge of toddlers having pain during the examination has a significant difference with the radiologic technologists’ gender