Past, Present, and Future of Postgraduate Nursing Education in Radiology at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan

Abstract

The National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan has offered a postgraduate training course for nurses in radiological medicine since 1994 because radiation protection and radiation effects have not been included as subjects in the official guidelines for nursing schools but are strongly required as important knowledge for nurses. By 2017, the training program had been conducted 102 times, and 3230 trainees had participated. To examine if participants thought there was a need for training, a questionnaire survey was carried out after the course, targeting 397 trainees who participated in the course from 2015 to 2017. Their average age was 39.2 years. Among them, 81.9% were general nurses, 17.6% held an administrative position, 44.8% had 1-5 years of experience in radiation medicine, and 83.7% had received training in radiation in the workplace or elsewhere before participating in the course. Of all, 91.7% participated to obtain knowledge of radiation basics and 65.2% participated to acquire the capability to respond to patients' questions. The average evaluation score of the training course was 90.2 out of 100. These findings indicate that presently, there is still a high demand for postgraduate training of nurses in radiological medicine and that an advanced course needs to be offered in the future.