The previous role of radiological nursing was to care for patients receiving radiation therapy at medical facilities. However, the recipients of radiological nursing care have now come to include people under actual radiation exposure and those in fear of radiation exposure. Radiological nursing currently covers a wide range of care for all stages of development and life from fetuses to the elderly, and from patients to the general population and healthcare workers. Radiological nursing consists of two specialties: radiation exposure nursing care and medical radiation nursing care.

Building the foundation of the radiological nursing specialties requires training nursing professionals to have high nursing intervention skills. Advanced practice nurses should provide active care for abnormal or emergent states of radiation exposure and have excellent knowledge of the health effects of radiation as well as the usual conditions in hospitals, factories and the community. Both specialties recognize radiation protection as an academic base because the care, reduction and prevention of radiation exposure are common to both. It is recommended that the two specialties of radiological nursing and the specialty of clinical cancer nursing, which involves radiation therapy care, be fused in the future; this will complete the framework of highly advanced radiological nursing care.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the level of nursing care expected by nursing managers in relation to radiological practices. Subjects comprised 430 nursing managers and 2,628 nurses working at 19 hospitals in Japan that had radiation programs and more than 300 beds. In February and March 2012, the nurses and managers completed questionnaires regarding occupational anxiety and the state of radiological education. Results showed that more than 90% of the nursing managers expected nurses to have an acceptable level of knowledge about radiation. In addition, 60% of the nurses indicated that they had obtained their knowledge about radiological practices from doctors and radiologic technologists, whereas the other 40% had acquired their knowledge from the mass media. About 80% of the nurses had experience in taking patients to and sitting in on X-ray examinations, and 70% had adjusted a patient’s positioning during the examination. About 20% of the nurses reported having anxiety about nursing care after nuclear medicine scans. Although nursing managers expected nurses to have clinical radiation expertise, hospitals only tended to offer workshops infrequently. Therefore, nurses must become familiar with radiological nursing during their undergraduate education. These results indicate that nurses working in the field of radiology should have access to adequate resources and continuing education.

Japan is a country which has the largest number of computer tomography apparatus in the world. We focused on the apparatus and in order to clarify the thoughts of the patients on the exposure by the inspection and on the word “radiation.” We conducted semi-structured interviews in 19 patients who underwent CT inspection.

The extracted results on the patients’ thoughts were as follows: ［Awareness of radiation］ consisting of “risk awareness of the effect on the human body,” “mental value,” and “feature of radiation”; ［Perceptions of inspection］ consisting of “usefulness of inspection,” “risk perception of inspection,” and “emotional reaction to inspection”; ［Trust in medical care］ consisting of “conviction of safety of medical treatment,” and “assurance from authority.”

Medical personnel is required to provide information needed by the patients and respond to their questions. That will enable to soften patients’ anxiety for radiation exposure and their reluctance in inspection. In addition, we have to bear the possibility in mind that there are some patients who increase anxiety by getting more knowledge. Thus, the necessity of the individual nursing intervention has been suggested.

Objective: To clarify the nursing interventions provided by radiotherapy nurses to patients and their families and also the difficulties they are facing when caring for the patients.

Method: A self-administered questionnaire was sent via mail to 800 nurses who were working in randomly selected hospitals which had 300 or more beds within the Kinki area. Researchers used the data provided by the nurses ［in the form of comments or descriptions］ to clarify the specific roles/interventions of the nurses, the difficulties they faced when giving these interventions and how they felt when administering care to the patient.

Results: 438 questionnaires were collected via mail from the participants ［53.5%］ and categorized. In the category “Nursing Interventions” the following points were extracted for analysis; ‘Assist in daily activities’, ‘Physical assessment before and after treatment’, ‘Care for relieving the symptoms accompanied by radiotherapy diagnosis and treatment’, ‘Responds to the questions from the patients and also provide information to them’, ‘Collaboration and adjustment with other professionals in the medical team’, ‘Make a nursing care plan’ and ‘Protection for the patient and nursing staffs’. Two additional categories addressed issues related to the difficulties in implementing these interventions with the following information being extracted for analysis; ‘Anxiety when caring caused by deficiency of knowledge about radiation therapy and radiotherapy nursing’, ‘Anxiety in safety management caused by deficiency of knowledge regarding radiation protection’.

Discussion: The results suggest nurses have no confidence due to a lack of knowledge which leads to difficulties. Current education and training is insufficient and needs to be re-evaluated at all levels.

The aim of this study was to show Japanese educating practice of skin care for radiodermatitis of breast cancer outpatients. 321 curative facilities in total were chosen from 296 facilities belonging to Japanese Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology （JASTRO） and 114 facilities that Certified Nurses in Radiation Therapy Nursing （CN） belong to, excluding overlapping facilities. Subjects of this question were nurses doing radiotherapy （RT） of outpatients. One nurse chosen by each facility answered the questionnaire survey for instruction of skin care about timing RT. We divided the nurses into CN and NS groups, and analyzed all the collected data by using the chi-square test, and compared nursing practice of the CN with that of NS. The ratio of CN ［washing irradiated site using soap during RT］ was significantly higher than NS. The ratio of CN ［washing irradiated site using mild soap］ and ［lathering the foam when using soap］ was significantly higher than NS. From comparing nursing practice of the CN with that of NS, it was shown that the CNs were practicing skin care based on recommended skin care for radiodermatitis by literatures.

Purpose: A study was conducted to clarify the relationship between the following factors concerning knowledge about radiation: the educational background of nurses; variable levels of knowledge of radiation resulting from differences in nursing duties and nursing experience; nurses’ self-evaluation of knowledge concerning radiation and anxiety about radiation exposure. Methods: All nurses of A hospital participated in a cross-sectional survey. Result: Three hundred and ninety-five （395） respondents completed the survey. The χ² test was used to examine items concerning whether or not nurses had received education concerning radiation. Significant correlations were found between the following two items: knowledge about radiation and self-evaluation of knowledge. More than 60% of the nurses had received education concerning radiation. The self-evaluation score was higher for the group who had graduated from nurse training institutes before 1988 （especially for the group aged 50 years and above）and for the group who had had experience working in a radiation clinic. Also, a correlation was found between the “self-evaluation score” and “knowledge score” （Pearson r＝0.42, N＝395, p＝0.001）. Concerning the eight items related to nursing and duties in radiation care, the χ² test was conducted to examine the relationship between the presence or absence of nursing duties and experience in radiation care and anxiety about radiation exposure. The results showed that only one item was statistically relevant, “entering the radiation treatment room” （χ²＝8.754, df＝1, p＝0.003）. Conclusion: Those nurses who had the most educational experience in radiation had the highest level of knowledge concerning radiation. Anxiety of exposure in nurses is reduced if there is work experience.