Assessing Anxiety Levels in Patients Attending Radiography Departments

Introduction

The aim of the research was to measure the anxiety of the participants when attending the radiography department for a particular investigation/treatment session and establish whether their fears were justified. For this purpose, the participants were asked to quantify their anxiety level on a visual analogue scale before attending the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session and after completing their MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. Although 75 participants were selected in the research process, only 50 participants participated in the survey. This study highlights the importance of providing adequate healthcare dissertation help to ensure that patients feel supported and understood during their medical procedures. Below are the results of the survey:

Reliability Analysis

Before proceeding with the result, it is essential to check whether the collected data is reliable or not. For this purpose, reliability analysis was performed by calculating Cronbach’s Alpha for both the questionnaires, that is, the questionnaire filled before MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session and questionnaire filled after the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. As a rule of thumb, if the Cronbach’s Alpha value is more than 0.70, the collected data is assumed to be reliable. That is, the results obtained from such analysis can be generalised. On the other hand, if the value of Cronbach’s Alpha is less than 0.70, the data is said to be unreliable, that is, results obtained from such data cannot be generalised effectively.

Table 1: Reliability Statistics

In the present case, in both the questionnaires there were 5 items. For questionnaire 1 that is, before MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session, the Cronbach’s Alpha comes to be 0.883 showing that it is greater than 0.70. That is, the data obtained from the questionnaire filled before treatment session is reliable. On the other hand, for questionnaire 2 that is, after MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session, the Cronbach’s Alpha comes to be 0.641 showing that it is less than 0.70. That is, the data obtained from the questionnaire filled after treatment session is unreliable.

Frequency Distribution

Table 2: Gender

Table 2 shows that there were total 50 participants out of which 22 (44 percent) were male and 28 (56 percent) were female participants. Thus, participants from both the genders were nearly equally selected for the service evaluation.

Anxiety Scale

The total anxiety scale for both the questionnaires was prepared by adding all the five items of the respective questionnaire. The minimum value for the individual item for both the scale was 0 while the maximum was 100. That is, in questionnaire 1, if the respondent has marked between 0 and 45, it means he or she is not at all anxious, 46 to 55 means he or she is bit anxious and 55 to 100 means he or she is extremely anxious. Similarly, for questionnaire 2, if the respondent has marked between 0 and 45, it means better than expected, 46 to 55 means same as expected and 55 to 100 means worse than expected. Thus, the minimum value for the total anxiety for both the questionnaire was 0, and the maximum was 500.

Descriptive Statistics

Table 3: Descriptive Statistics

Table 3 shows that the minimum age of the participant was 21 year and the maximum age of the participant was 79 years. Moreover, the mean age of the participants comes out to be 55.68 years. That is, the majority of the participants were middle-aged. The table also shows that the minimum score for anxiety level before the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session was 38 which was increased to 41 for anxiety level after the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. On the other hand, the maximum score for the anxiety level was 467 before the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session which was reduced to 421 for anxiety after the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. Finally, the mean score for anxiety level was 275.96 before the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session and 243.24 after the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. This shows that anxiety level of the participants gets reduce once they undergo MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. However, whether this change is statistically significant or not is determined by applying paired t-test in the following section.

Hypothesis

H0: There is no statistically significant difference between the mean anxiety levels of the participants before and after the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session.

H1: There is statistically significant difference between the mean anxiety levels of the participants before and after the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session.

Paired T-Test

Paired t-test is performed when the researcher wants to determine the mean of the differences between two paired samples differs from 0. Thus, in the given case, paired t-test is appropriate to justify whether the fear of the participants regarding MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session is justified. In this, the anxiety was measured twice resulting in pairs of observations.

Table 4: Paired Samples Statistics

Table 4 shows the paired samples statistics. As per the table, the mean of anxiety for the questionnaire 1 was 275.96 with a standard deviation of 129.417, while the mean of anxiety for questionnaire 2 was 243.24 with a standard deviation of 74.553. This shows that there has been a decline in the anxiety level of the participants once they undergo MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session.

Table 5: Paired Samples Correlations

Table 5 shows paired correlation between the anxiety level before MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session and anxiety level after MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. As per the table, there is a positive correlation between the two anxiety levels. That is, if the anxiety level increases before the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session, there will be an increase in the anxiety level after MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session and vice versa. However, the p-value or the significance value comes out to be greater than critical alpha value, showing that the above association is statistically not significant.

Table 6: Paired Samples Test

Table 6 shows a positive mean difference of 32.720, that is, the anxiety level of the participants had reduced after undergoing MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. Further, the t-value for the samples comes out to be 1.587 with p-value or significance value of 0.119. Since the p-value or the significance value comes out to be greater than critical alpha value, it means there is no statistically significant difference between the anxiety levels before MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session and after MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. That is, the fear level of the participants is justified as they were more or less equally anxious before MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session and after MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session. Thus, the null hypothesis is accepted, and the alternative hypothesis is rejected. This means, There is no statistically significant difference between the mean anxiety levels of the participants before and after the MRI scan or radiotherapy treatment session.

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