Patients who are anxious during MRIs are more likely to require repeated sequences, and new research has unearthed reasons behind such stress and how to address them.
MRI procedures are common, but research suggests they can cause up to 37% of patients to feel moderate anxiety. No matter the reason, when patients are stressed during scans, they are also more likely to need sedation or even abandon the exam all together.
“Beyond causing a negative patient experience, stress and anxiety also relate to unexpected patient-related events, which delay the clinical workflow and effect a significant amount of lost revenue,” Rolf Janka, with the Department of Radiology at the University Hospital Erlangen in Germany, and coauthors recently discussed.
To understand how to minimize anxiety, experts analyzed how patients respond to MRIs both psychologically and physiologically, factors that influence their reaction, and the resulting impact on outcomes.
The researchers surveyed 96 patients at their facility who had to undergo MRIs that required them to enter head-first. Patients answered pre-exam questions and gave a saliva sample (to measure cortisol levels) before the scan. Immediately afterward, the steps were repeated.
Based on the questionnaires, the psychological measures improved significantly from pre- to post-MRI, but the physiological responses remained unchanged. This could be due to exam length or patients’ routinely elevated levels of cortisol, the experts suggested.
As far as factors that might influence anxiety (previous MRI experience, pain, age, position, etc.), the results were mixed. Some did relate to pre- and post-MRI cortisol levels but had little bearing on psychological state. However, previous MRI experience was most consistently associated with outcomes (rescans, scan duration, etc.).
“This suggests that patients who have a bad MRI experience for once will keep on making bad experiences; still, it also means that if one manages to provide a positive patient experience, patients are also more likely to make positive experiences with future examinations,” experts wrote.
Further research pertaining to personalizing patient experiences based on both their psychological and physiological needs could reduce the need for repeated scans and sedation, the authors suggested.
You can view the research in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.