Abstract
Purpose: When performing nuclear medicine examinations, body wraps or plastic supports are used to support and immobilize the patient's upper extremities to prevent patient safety accidents. However, the existing plastic supports compromised patient and staff safety, including finger entrapment and falls. Moreover, the body wrap provided by manufacturers compromised image quality such as upper extremities cutoff during whole body bone scan. Therefore, a new design of body wrap was developed to improve the issue, and this study aims to evaluate the usability of this medical body wrap. Materials and Methods: To evaluate the usability of the newly designed medical body wrap, a quality assessment of whole body bone scan images and a user satisfaction survey were conducted. Adult patients (male:female=129:152, age: 60.3±12.4 years, BMI: 24.0±4.2) aged 16 years or older who underwent a whole body bone scan during two periods: June to July 2022 (before improvement, n=139) and June to July 2023 (after improvement, n=142) were randomly selected for image quality evaluation. Five radiotechnologists visually evaluated the posterior view of the whole body bone image, including the left and right elbow (2 points), arm (2 points), whether the hand is extended (2 points), whether the hand is included (2 points), and the number of visible fingers (10 points), with a total of 18 points, which were converted to 100 points and analyzed for difference before and after improvement using an independent sample t-test. The user satisfaction questionnaire was evaluated using a 5-point Likert scale among 16 radiotechnologists from three general hospitals who experienced the new body wrap. Results: The image quality assessment was 82.0±13.8 before the improvement and 89.3±10.1 after the improvement, an average of 7.3 points higher, with a statistically significant difference (t=5.02, p<0.01). The user satisfaction survey showed an overall satisfaction rating of 4.1±0.8 for ease of use, 3.8±0.7 for scan preparation time, 3.9±0.7 for patient safety, 3.8±1.2 for scan accuracy, and 4.2±0.7 for recommendation (87.5% questionnaire response rate). Conclusion: The developed body wrap showed higher image quality and user satisfaction compared to the old method. Considering these results, it is deemed that the new body wrap may be more useful than existing methods.