enhancing online learning: a comparative review of multimedia and instructional booklet approaches for operating room staff training of radiological safety

Background: online learning has become an integral part of modern education, offering flexibility and accessibility to learners worldwide. in the context of occupational hazards, ionizing radiation poses a considerable risk in operating rooms, potentially causing severe and irreversible harm to those working in these environments. this review study aimed to compare the effectiveness of multimedia and instructional booklet methods in educating iranian operating room staff regarding radiation protection principles.methods: this review employed a comparative literature analysis. relevant studies were identified using keywords like ‘radiation safety training,’ ‘multimedia learning,’ ‘instructional booklets,’ ‘operating room staff,’ ‘e-learning in healthcare,’ and ‘comparative educational approaches.’ these terms helped identify studies focusing on radiation safety and effective educational methods in medical contexts from journals indexed in scientific databases, including sciencedirect, pubmed, scopus, sid, magiran, and eric databases and the google scholar search engine, covering the time frame from 2014 to 2024. articles that did not align with the research objective or were published as letters to the editor were excluded from the study. the articles were evaluated using the sanra checklist and reviewed by two education specialists.results: from the 36 articles identified, 16 were selected as relevant to educating iranian operating room staff on the principles of radiation protection. the studies consistently demonstrated that multimedia training, encompassing elements such as videos, interactive simulations, and virtual reality, led to notable improvements in knowledge scores compared to traditional instructional booklets.onclusion: the research findings indicated the effectiveness of both educational methods. however, the multimedia approach increased awareness among the research participants more effectively than the other two methods. therefore, based on the study results, this educational method is recommended for teaching topics related to radiation protection principles.