Dissertation Abstract

Patient Expectations of Full Body CT Screening

Introduction . Despite limited scientific evidence on its risks and benefit, full body CT screening is available to self-referred individuals. The purpose of this study was to develop a scientific knowledge base on patient expectations of the procedure and to determine if characteristics of patients influence their expectations of its health benefits.

Methods . Six nationally representative facilities performing full body CT screening were used as study sites. A pretest-only, between-subjects, descriptive survey design was used to study 94 patients volunteers, scheduled to receive full body CT screening.

Data analysis . Descriptive statistics were used in examining information on the demographic, health, and knowledge characteristics of the patients. The Chi Square Test for Independence and Spearman analyzed associations between patient characteristics and responses to expectation questions. An alpha of .05 was the level of significance.

Results . Survey participants were predominantly White, married, health conscious, 35-65 year olds with income and educational levels several times above national figures. Patients' highest expectations related to consumer empowerment and lowest expectations related to the limitations of the procedure. The five patient characteristics found to have significant associations with patient expectations were gender; referral method; level of personal health concern; number of other health screenings; and patients' self-estimations of their current health status.

Conclusions . This study provided quantitative and descriptive data which were consistent with and added to the existing, primarily anecdotal knowledge base. The findings can be used in educating patients, prior to their providing informed consent for the procedure.

This dissertation citation and abstract are published with permission of ProQuest Information and Learning. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission.