Last update:
11-Nov-2024

OBJECTIVE To investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours of radiographers in relation to bioethical issues that arise during their daily professional practice. For this purpose, a new, dependable, and valid questionnaire was created. This research tool was employed in a nationwide survey that involved the participation of 180 radiographers, with 148 completed questionnaires (representing an 82.2% response rate).

METHOD We developed a comprehensive questionnaire comprising 56 questions, organised into eight distinct sections. This questionnaire was then deployed on the Survey Monkey online platform, which aligns with the specific requirements for our pilot study. It was distributed to a randomly selected group of 40 Greek radiographers. We conducted exploratory factor analysis for each scale under study and performed reliability analysis using Cronbach's alpha.

RESULTS The finalised questionnaire was categorised into eight sections, namely, "Basic bioethics knowledge", "Patient care", "Informed consent", "Discrimination", "Confidentiality", "Attitudes towards bioethics education", "Attitudes towards training outcomes" and "Attitudes regarding the impact of applying bioethics principles". Additionally, there was a ninth section comprising six demographic questions. All the results indicated that the new measurement tool demonstrated a high to acceptable level of reliability, with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.505 to 0.841.

CONCLUSIONS The questionnaire developed as part of this study stands as a valid and reliable instrument for capturing radiographers' knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours pertaining to ethical matters. Therefore, it was suitable to be used in the nationwide survey of the study.

Key words: Confidentiality, Discriminations' medical ethics, Patient care.