Depression and Anxiety Levels of Radiology Workers

Objective: the aim of this study was to highlight whether there was a change in the anxiety and depression levels of radiation workers who were constantly exposed to ionizing radiation. for this purpose, the personnel working at the suleyman demirel university, education and research hospital radiology unit were evaluated for the levels of depression and anxiety. method: thirty-eight personnel from the suleyman demirel university, educationand research hospital, department of radiology unit participated in this study. for the evaluation of the levels of depression and anxiety of the participants, beck anxiety inventory (bai) and beck depression inventory (bdi) were used. statistical significances were evaluated using the computer program spss 15.0 and kruskal-wallis test, independent t-test, anova, pearson correlation and mann- whitney u tests. results: personnel's average age was 32.42 ± 5.5 years and of the 38 participants, 19 (50%) were male, 19 (50%) were female. beck score averages were 10.26 ± 11.66 for bai, and 7.00 ± 6.54 for bdi and regarding bai values, there was a significant difference between the genders (p = 0,37). means and standard deviations of bai and bdi were found out as 14,21± 14,31(n=19) and 7,77±6,39 (n=18) for women respectively, while they were 6,31±6,49 (n=19) and 6,26±6,76 (n=19) for men. a positive correlation was detected between age and bai and bdi values (p=0,001; p=0,002). furthermore, there was a positive significant correlation between the term of services and the bai and bdi values (p = 0.007, p = 0.029). body mass index (bmi) was found as 25.68 ± 0.47 for men and 24.58 ± 1.13 for women. discussion: for the staff working at the radiodiagnostic unit, an increase in the severity of the symptoms of depression and anxiety levels was observed as their age and term of services increase. under the light of these data it can be said that, radiology staff should be examined at regular intervals to monitor their levels of anxiety and depression in order to evaluate their professional and other performances.