Assessment of Chest Radiographs for Quality Assurance and Radiation Protection

Abstract

A retrospective study of 1000 chest radiographs randomly selected from various government and private owned hospitals in the southern part of Nigeria covering a period of twenty years was carried out. Accuracy in patient positioning, beam collimation and identification of radiographs were assessed as indicators for quality assurance and radiation protection. The result showed that for male 59% were rotated and 41% were not. For the female, 60% were rotated while 39% were not. 95.30% radiographs were inadequately collimated, and 69.30% were properly identified. This suggests poor quality and exposure of patients to unnecessary radiation though more attention was paid to identification of radiographs.

KEY WORDS: Positioning; Collimation; Identification; Quality; Radiation.

West African Journal of Radiology Vol.7(1) 2000: 18-25