An investigation of psychological burden of PET scanning procdures
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An investigation of the psychological burden caused by PET/MRI and PET/CT scanning procedures, and the effect of a potentially anxiety reducing intervention
IRAS ID
179182
Contact name
R I Shortman
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Office -
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 6 days
Research summary
The combination of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to produce simultaneous PET/MRI is a new imaging modality. As awareness of PET/MRI in the patient population is far more limited than more established modalities, there is potential for a referral for PET/MRI to cause anxiety to patients. This anxiety has been shown to cause a negative reaction prior to standard MRI, resulting in movement artefact during the procedure and in some cases complete disruption and abandoning of examinations. Similarly, computed tomography (CT) scans and PET/CT scans have been shown to cause embarrassment, discomfort and anxiety in patients, which contributes to an overall level of psychological burden.
In order to evaluate the new PET/MRI service we administered a questionnaire to identify the level of psychological burden caused in patients, for both PET/MRI and PET/CT to identify if measures to alleviate anxiety and burden would be required for use with patients referred for one modality or the other, or both. The results have shown that there is a significant level of burden/ discomfort caused by the PET/MRI scanning prccedure, and this relates to previous negative scanning scanning procedures, and level of infomration received by the patient prior to their scan.
As a result of these interesting results we would like to submit this work to a scientific journal.As part of service imnprovement, in response to this data we would like to produce an informational video to show patients the procedures they will undergo, and explain what will happen to them while they are with us. We would like to prospectively evaluate the effect of this video by assessing the anxiety of patients that come to the department and the level of burden they experience while they are undergoing the PET/CT and PET/MRI procedure.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0241
Date of REC Opinion
22 May 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion