Radiographic Image Quality in Referral Hospitals, Sari, Iran 2017

Background and Image quality together with low patient dose is two important goals in radiography procedures. Acquire radiographic images with inadequate quality give rise to uselessly patient dose, improper diagnosis, waste the cost and impose the biological effect to the patients. In this study image quality was evaluated for most common radiographic procedures based on indentified image quality criteria in Sari referral governmental hospitals.
In this cross-sectional study more than 1200 radiographic images were evaluated for adult patients in two referral hospitals in Sari. Image quality were assessed based on identified image criteria in the Commission of European Communities guidelines and Merrill's atlas. Image evaluation were done in two image criteria as anatomical visibility and radiographic indicators.
Mean radiographic images which met all quality criteria on anatomical visibility evaluation in Imam Khomeini and Bu-ali sina hospital were %71.9 ± 9.8. The Highest quality adherence was in image edge sharpness as a important radiographic criteria. Lumbar spine radiography had the best image quality in two hospital than the other radiographs.
This study shown that radiographic images in referral governmental hospital in sari had good quality. Having the deep inspiration of patient in chest radiography and proper field size in skull radiography improves radiographic image quality criteria adherence in two hospitals, considerably.