Abstract
Background
Pain might act as a distraction while the operator performs ultrasound imaging. It is not clear whether perceived pain while scanning is associated with scan quality.
Materials and Methods
An internet-based survey was conducted during the months of April to June 2009 for members of the Society for Vascular Ultrasound (SVU). Survey questions included questions evaluating demographics, work load, practice milieu, and level of imaging experience. The level of pain experienced while performing scans in the last month before the survey was evaluated on a pain scale of 0 to 10 and the possibility that scan quality might have been affected (0 no effect, 1, possibly and 2, definitely). Comparisons were made with the use of analysis of variance and multivariable logistic regression.
Results
We evaluated the responses of 640 SVU members for a response rate of 14.4%. Most sonographers surveyed were in the 50 years or older age category (n = 296; 46.6%) and had an average of 21 or more years of imaging experience (n = 257; 41%). We found that scan quality was inversely associated with the level of experienced pain (p < 0.0016) and positively associated with transducer time: as pain and transducer time increased, scan quality decreased taking into consideration age, gender, and experience.
Conclusion
Our data suggest that pain while scanning and sonographer perception that quality of the examination is affected are strongly associated. Further analyses of the survey data and the development of appropriate analytical tools are needed to investigate possible causal links.
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