Radiographers’ self-perceived confidence and competence in computed tomography. : does age, work experience or regularity of working make a difference?

Abstract

Computed tomography (CT) is a constantly evolving modality in medical imaging that requires continuous development by those working in the environment. Moreover, professionals’ competence and confidence have an impact to their clinical performance. Therefore, it is important to get an understanding of the state of these variables as well as the underlying factors that may affect to the perception of them. The aim of this study was to investigate radiographers’ self-perceived competence and confidence in different age groups and with different work experience in CT.

This study was conducted as quantitative cross-sectional study with the help of an online survey. The data collection tool was built on the basis of a literature review and pilot tested with an expert panel before the actual data collection. 36 radiographers working in CT in a Finnish health care organisation providing imaging services participated in the study. The data was analysed in the SPSS program. Statistical significances between different age- (≤ 30, 31 – 45, and > 45), regularity of working- (“about once in 1-2 weeks or less often”, and “several times a week”) and work experience groups (< 5, 5 – 14, and ≥ 15) were analysed with Kruskal-Wallis or Mann-Whitney U tests.

The overall results showed that radiographers evaluated their competence either to competent or professional level, and confidence either to quite or very well confident level. When comparing results between different background variables, it was noted that when looking at the big picture, age or the regularity of working in CT did not make a significant difference to the perceived competence or confidence, or work experience did not make a significant difference to the perceived confidence based on this data. Although, work experience showed a significant impact to the perception of competence among the radiographers under study stating that the biggest change in the perception of competence occurred after the early stages of work experience, and after that there was no noticeable change, even though the work experience increased.

The results lead to a conclusion that radiographers perceive their self-evaluated competence and confidence mainly to a high level. In addition to that, work experience plays a role in the perception of competence based on this data.