The level of confidence and responsibility accepted by Australian radiation therapists in developing plans and implementing treatment

Abstract 

The purpose of this research was to assess (i) how confident Radiation Therapists (RTs) are in developing a series of plans that have increasing levels of difficulty, and (ii) the level of responsibility that they are willing to accept in relation to these treatments being implemented without the Radiation Oncologist (RO) reviewing or countersigning the plan. A self-administered questionnaire was designed around a set of six clinical planning scenarios demonstrating increasing levels of difficulty. Two hundred and three Radiation Therapists returned a completed questionnaire. All RTs indicated that they were confident to complete all the plans regardless of difficulty (p<0.0001) except for newly qualified RTs in their first year of practice who indicated a lack of confidence with the most difficult case only. Contrary to the high levels of confidence, RTs overall were only willing to accept responsibility for implementing treatment for the two basic level scenarios (p<0.0001). To gauge the clinical usefulness of this finding a clinical centre audit was conducted that indicated that basic level procedures account for around 30–40% of a department's workload. RTs indicated a number of issues as barriers to accepting responsibility for more advanced work.

Keywords: Radiation therapy, Confidence, Responsibility, Advanced practice, Planning, Treatment