The radiography profession in Sweden is young but has been rapidly changing over the recent years. The developing profession has led to radiographers facing various challenges related to responsibility for both the technical equipment and patient care in the periradiographic process. Further education is urgent to keep up with the arising level of competence required. The study aimed to explore radiographer's experience of their work performance and contribution to the clinic after accomplishing a 7.5 ECTS postgraduate course in appendicular reporting. The study has a qualitative design, based on individual and semistructured interviews with 34 registered radiographers from all parts of Sweden. The results revealed that the course led to “Breadth and depth in the professional practice.” This was seen by a perceived increased knowledge, more professional recognition, and a perceived increased work satisfaction. The postgraduate course in reporting was a valuable experience for the attending radiographers and contributed both to their personal and professional development. 

Introduction: The Convention on the Rights of the Child will be absorbed into Swedish law by 2020, which highlights the need to promote equality in communication between health care professionals and communicatively vulnerable children. In this regard, participation and person-centredness is important in the interaction with each child to provide adequate information on the peri-radiographic process in a way that the child can understand. Hence, the aim was to develop communication support for interaction with children during acute radiographic procedures.

Method: The study has a qualitative design adapting a multiphase structure. A participatory design was used which included four phases conducted in succession to each other. Interviews were conducted with children from Elementary School and Special School. Questionnaires were collected from their parents and from radiographers in four different Radiology Departments.

Results: The analysis of the data highlighted the need for information in the peri-radiographic process. Parents and children wanted material that is easy to use and could be adapted in a person-centred way.

Conclusion: A prototype of the ICIR (interactive communication support in radiology settings), with illustrations and accompanying text was developed that can be useful as information sharing in interaction between children, parents and health care professionals in the radiographic context.

Implications for practice: The ICIR can be a usable tool for information sharing in the interaction between children, parents and health care professionals during radiographic procedures. 

INTRODUCTION: Adolescents need support from family, friends, and teachers to increase their involvement in everyday life. Their environment and their own characteristics also influence their ability to participate in an everyday supportive environment.

AIM: The aim of the study was to investigate patterns of support from parents, teachers, and very important persons such as peers to the ability of adolescents to participate in everyday life, as well as the importance of interpersonal relations as experienced by the adolescents.

METHOD: The study has a cross-sectional design. The data compiled and analysed in this study are part of a longitudinal study of adolescents and their development into adults-LoRDIA (Longitudinal Research on Development In Adolescence). A combination of person- and variable-oriented design was used to capture patterns of support.

RESULTS: Adolescents with a complicated home situation and low economic prerequisites who received little support from parents and friends participated to a lower degree in home activities. A substantial number of these adolescents had self-reported neurodevelopmental disorders and, as a group, were more often exposed to harassment. However, these adolescents participated to a higher extent in school activities, although they received little support from the teachers. The adolescents who received most support from parents and teachers were those with a country of origin other than Sweden and those who lived with both of their parents and had more siblings than average. However, this did not mean that they participated to a higher extent in home and school activities.

Introduction: Anxiety is often experienced by children undergoing health care procedures, and children with autism spectrum disorders (ADS) experience more anxiety than typically developed children. A prerequisite for obtaining an optimum procedure is firstly based on the health care provider’s knowledge about children with ASD, but may also depend on the use of guidelines. Two previous national surveys showed, that none radiology or paediatric departments and a minority of anaesthesiology departments throughout Sweden use specific guidelines when seeing children with ASD. Following, the purpose was to develop guidelines to use when caring for and preparing children with ASD in those settings.

Methods: A modified Delphi method was used, including19 experts identified from the two afore mentioned surveys. The questions considered in the process, proceeded from previous research and the results from the surveys. The experts’ responses regarding the importance of each item, were analysed and scrutinized between each round.

Results: The Delphi process resulted in guidelines consisting of 15 items and a checklist with 16 aspects. The items cover the areas: planning and involving parents, features in the environment, use of time, communication, thehealth care professionals. The checklist covers the child’spattern of communication, anxiety, sensory stimuli, special interests and likes/dislikes.

Conclusions: To obtain an optimum caring encounter when a child with ASD is seen in the preoperative and radiology setting, a meticulous planning is important and the environment should be adjusted for the needs of the child. To accomplish this, guidelines need to be in place and be followed.

Objective: As a primary objective, this study purports to develop guidelines to better care for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), particularly regarding these children's preparation for anesthesia and radiologic procedures.

Methods: Using a Delphi method with an online distribution of questionnaire, guidelines for caring for children with ASD were created. Twenty-one participants were included in the expert panel. These participants were working with children with ASD in several anesthesia and radiology departments in Sweden. A list of items was created from a previous survey and the literature. In the first round, the items with <60% agreement were discarded. Items were merged, and a new list was created. Two more similar rounds were performed. In the last 2 rounds, 21 participants responded, and 80% agreement was considered to be consensus.

Results: The final guidelines consisted of 14 items and a checklist of 16 factors. The 5 areas covered by the items and the checklist were as follows: planning involving parents/guardians, features in the environment, and use of time, communication, and the health care professionals. The organization was important in making it possible for the health care professional to care for the individual child according to the child's needs. It was important to involve the parents/guardians to obtain knowledge about the functioning of the child.

Conclusion: A caring encounter involving a child with ASD in the anesthesia and radiology contexts requires advance planning, catered specifically to the individual needs of each child. To accomplish this, general knowledge regarding ASD and ASD's particular manifestation in the child entrusted to their care, is required from the health care workers. The organization needs to have structures in place to facilitate this process.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of guidelines and routines used nationwide when children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are taken care of and examined in a radiology department during a peri-radiographic process.

METHOD: A nationwide survey was compiled and distributed to 94 radiology departments throughout Sweden, i.e. those performing more than 100 000 radiographic examinations annually. The survey was designed as a web questionnaire with seven questions on possible guidelines and/or routines for the departments when preparing and taking care of children with ASD in conjunction with a radiographic procedure. The data were scrutinized, using descriptive statistics.

RESULTS: In total, 86 radiology departments responded to the survey (response rate 92%). Of those departments, 40 did not examine children with ASD. None of the departments included in the study had existing guidelines underpinning the routines when preparing and performing radiographic examinations for children diagnosed with ASD. A few departments (n = 8) would set aside more time for the procedure if it were known in advance that the child to be examined had been diagnosed with ASD. Also, some departments (n = 7) had radiographers who were more experienced in the care of children who would be appointed to perform examinations for children with ASD.

CONCLUSION: It is suggested that guidelines should be developed in order to increase interaction in a supportive way and decrease anxiety during the peri-radiographic process with children with ASD.

Introduction: Radiography is a healthcare speciality with many technical challenges. Advances in engineering and information technology applications may continue to drive and be driven by radiographers. The world of diagnostic imaging is changing rapidly and radiographers must be proactive in order to survive. To ensure sustainable development, organisations have to identify future opportunities and threats in a timely manner and incorporate them into their strategic planning. Hence, the aim of this study was to analyse and describe plausible scenarios for the radiography profession in 2025.

Method: The study has a qualitative design with an inductive approach based on focus group interviews. The interviews were inspired by the Scenario-Planning method.

Results: Of the seven trends identified in a previous study, the radiographers considered two as the most uncertain scenarios that would have the greatest impact on the profession should they occur. These trends, labelled "Access to career advancement" and "A sufficient number of radiographers", were inserted into the scenario cross. The resulting four plausible future scenarios were: The happy radiographer, the specialist radiographer, the dying profession and the assembly line.

Conclusion: It is suggested that "The dying profession" scenario could probably be turned in the opposite direction by facilitating career development opportunities for radiographers within the profession. Changing the direction would probably lead to a profession composed of "happy radiographers" who are specialists, proud of their profession and competent to carry out advanced tasks, in contrast to being solely occupied by "the assembly line".

Introduction: Radiographers are today facing various challenges as the technical equipment is getting more advanced and the examinations encounter patients with complex medical records. Furthermore, in the Swedish context, radiology departments are struggling with shortage of both radiologists and radiographers. Following, this has led to a work-situation where radiologists are not always in place during emergency duty, and radiographers’are taking on additional responsibility. Hence, there is a need for further and deeper knowledge within areas that previously was undertaken solely by radiologists. One such area is reporting; and a 7.5 ECTS course was designed and offered to registered radiographers. The aim was to investigate radiographer’s experience of their work-performance and contribution to the clinic after attending this particular course in reporting.

Methods: The study had a qualitative design based on individual and semi-structured interviews with 34 radiographers who attended the course in reporting the fall of 2013, 2014 and 2015. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The analysis resulted in a comprehensive theme: Width and depth in the professional practice. This theme embraced three categories: Increased knowledge, Professional recognition, Work satisfaction.

Conclusions: Increased knowledge in reporting is necessary to meet the demands from the diagnostic departments. A course in reporting on advanced level is a tool for deeper understanding of the medical image. However, there will still be challenges and constraints during the path to be a fully specialized radiographer in reporting. There is a need for more courses in this area on the second and third level.