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Assessment of medical students’ knowledge regarding radiation associated risk and its protection: finding from a cross-sectional study

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Abstract

Objective

The current study assessed the knowledge of the medical students regarding the nature of radiation, associated risks, and protective measures.

Method

A cross-sectional study was conducted among international students enrolled in different medical colleges/universities in Xian, PR China. A self-developed and self-reported questionnaire was used for the current study. The descriptive statistics was carried out to summarize the finding of the study. Chi-square and Fisher exact tests were conducted to assess the association of the demographics with knowledge level.

Results

A total of 796 students responded among 980. Most of the participants fell in the age range of 20–25 years (42.6%), being male (67.1%) and having bachelor’s education (56.7%). Participants with previous experience was 58.7%. The age group of 20–25 years (p < 0.001), being male (p < 0.001), having bachelor education (p < 0.001), and previous experience (p = 0.009) was significantly associated with moderate to good knowledge. The overall knowledge about the nature of radiation (96%) and associated risk (82%) was good, but regarding protection, 59% of the participants showed good knowledge.

Conclusion

Most of the participants showed satisfactory result. However, the knowledge regarding protection measures was poor in almost half of the population.

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Data availability

The data can be requested from the corresponding author on valid request.

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Authors

Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Pardis Bahadori, Ana P. Molina-Recalde, and Abdullah Alruwaili. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ahmed Alanazy, Wondimagegn Tibebu Tilahun, and Gulsanga Ayub, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Musa Bin Bashir.

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Bahadori, P., Molina-Recalde, A.P., Saleh Alruwaili, A. et al. Assessment of medical students’ knowledge regarding radiation associated risk and its protection: finding from a cross-sectional study. Ir J Med Sci 193, 1515–1519 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-023-03583-4

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