Radiation education for nurses working at middle-sized hospitals in Japan

Awareness of Medical Radiologic Technologists of Ionizing Radiation and Radiation Protection

Japanese people experienced the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, the Japan Nuclear Fuel Conversion Co. criticality accident, it was found that many human resources are needed to respond to residents' concerns about disaster exposure in the event of a radiation disaster. Medical radiologic technologists learn about radiation from the time of their training, and are engaged in routine radiographic work, examination explanations, medical exposure counseling, and radiation protection of staff. By learning about nuclear disasters and counseling, we believe they can address residents' concerns. In order to identify items needed for training, we examined the perceptions of medical radiologic technologists in the case of different specialties, modalities and radiation doses. In 2016, 5 years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, we conducted a survey of 57 medical radiologic technologists at two medical facilities with different specialties and work contents to investigate their attitudes toward radiation. 42 participants answered questions regarding sex, age group, presence of children, health effects of radiation exposure, radiation control, generation of X rays by diagnostic X ray equipment, and radiation related units. In a comparison of 38 items other than demographic data, 14 showed no significant differences and 24 showed significant differences. This study found that perceptions of radiation were different among radiology technologists at facilities with different specialties. The survey suggested the possibility of identifying needed training items and providing effective training.

Comparison of Standard Training to Virtual Reality Training in Nuclear Radiation Emergency Medical Rescue Education

OBJECTIVE

Due to the particularity of nuclear radiation emergencies, professional technical training is necessary. However, nuclear radiation emergency medical rescue nurses are not well prepared to respond in time. This study aims to explore the effect of virtual reality (VR) in training nurses for nuclear radiation emergency medical rescue.

METHODS

Thirty nurses who received traditional nuclear radiation rescue training from May 2020 to October 2020 were selected as the control group, and another 30 nurses who received VR nuclear radiation emergency medical rescue training from November 2020 to April 2021 were selected as the experimental group. The examination results, learning enthusiasm, training effect evaluation, and training satisfaction were compared between the 2 groups.

RESULTS

The experimental group had significantly higher examination score, learning enthusiasm, training effect evaluation, and training satisfaction than the control group (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The application of VR in the training of nuclear radiation emergency medical rescue can improve the training performance, learning enthusiasm, training effect, and training satisfaction of trainees. Considering the advantages of VR, it could be widely used in the training of nuclear radiation emergency medical rescue in the future.