A survey of quality of sonographic practice

Abstract

Sonography practice is operator dependent. The aim of this study was to determine the level of training of sonography practitioners and their participation in continuing professional development (CPD): performance of regular quality assurance tests on ultrasound equipment, type of sonographic services rendered and type of transducers used for such services. The survey was a prospective cross-sectional study done at Enugu and Abuja, Nigeria. Ethical approval was obtained while convenience sampling method was used to select 15 centres studied. Self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was used in data collection. Analysis was carried out with Epi Info computer software, version 3.5.1 whereas descriptive statistic was used to analyse the responses. Most ultrasound machines were over 10 years old; 30% and 32.5% of practitioners had only MBBS and BSc in medical radiography respectively; 20% of practitioners were not involved in CPD; 35% of ultrasound machines had regular quality assurance tests; 37.5% of repeat examinations were due to errors in sonographic reports; 25% were due to missed diagnosis. Majority (70%) of small body part/superficial examinations carried out either with sector array (22.5%) or convex array (50%) transducer of 3.5MHz frequency. Sonography practice was poor in the two cities. Improving the training and regular participation of practitioners in CPD programmes and also carrying out regular quality assurance checks on ultrasound machines will improve quality of sonographic practice in the two cities.