Medical Imaging and Clinical Research

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) characterizes as a mental disorder. According to Johnson et al., ASD is a developmental disorder of the brain that associates with impairments in social interaction, communication, and repetitive patterns of behavior; controlling their behaviors in usually challenging especially in hospitals. Johnson et al. show that children may become anxious in health care setup because of new faces of HCPs making them uncontrollable. Attending to such children would, therefore, need an experienced staff with good communication skills. Radiographers have a responsibility of ensuring smooth and effective communication with their patients to obtain a successful imaging. Mettler et al. present a research done in 2007 indicating that the amount of patients exposed to radiation has increased to a similar level to that of background radiation. It means that radiographers have failed in their responsibility hence putting the ASD children at more risk.

 

The objective of the research herein is to evaluate the efficiency of effective communication between radiographers and autism pediatric patient as a tool to reduction of radiation exposure.The study involves a qualitative research with two groups (n=10, five radiographers and five mothers to ASD children). The questionnaires were analysed by data analysis software, STRATA.

In results, mothers disclosed how their children behaved in different environments and what makes the children calm while radiologists expressed the challenges they face especially during imaging and gained strategies from mother's experiences. Good communication leads to easy and effective imaging procedure and thus, reduction in radiation dose in ASD patients.