ESTRO 2023 - Abstract Book

S2087

Digital Posters

ESTRO 2023

PO-2317 Evaluation of radiation technicians' levels of satisfaction in their work

F. Bouguerra 1 , G.E.F. Noubigh 1 , W. Kaabia 1 , S. Zarra 1 , S. Yahyaoui 1 , H. Ayadi 1 , A. Ghorbel 1 , R. Abidi 1 , C. Naser 1

1 Salah Azaiez Intitute, Radiotherapy, Tunis, Tunisia

Purpose or Objective Cancer can have a detriment effect not only on physical and mental health of patients, but also, of their caregivers. In the context of radiotherapy, it is crucial to ensure a good level of satisfaction on life work and service’s quality among technicians, for the stability of an adequate interpersonal relationship with patients during the treatment. Materials and Methods A prospective descriptive study, based on an auto-evaluating written questionnaire was conducted between February 2022 and April 2022. A 19-questions-questionnaire was designed to the 18 radiation therapists (RTT) working in the radiation department of Salah Azaiez Institute of Oncology (ISA), based on the DEGRO Quality of Life Work Group to evaluate levels of satisfaction of health workers in the radiotherapy spectrum. Satisfaction levels of technicians were evaluated on five major key points: General conditions, Undesirable patients/ family members encounters, Professional and private life, Stress and Global satisfaction score perceived by technicians themselves. Each question scored on a 4-point Likert scale and then, the calculated mean score global satisfaction was classified into three Results The RTT were equally divided between cobalt and linear accelerator (LA) treatment room (9 RTT in each area). Technicians reported that the average working hours was 31.89 hours per week. The reported average of patients treated was 30.22 patients per day. Ten and 9 RTTs were suffering from anxiety and distress, respectively. Six RTTs reported suffering from anger issues, 3 reported enduring insomnia and only 1 technician reported having none of these emotional responses. Regardless of the gender, both the global satisfaction score and DEGRO general score were in the average level of satisfaction corresponding to a medium quality of work. Technicians with [15-19] years of experience had the best global satisfaction and DEGRO general level (high medium and medium, respectively). RTTs working in the LA treatment rooms reported a low medium global satisfaction with mean score of 1.47 versus a medium global satisfaction in the cobalt treatment with a mean score of 1.7. Whereas the scores of the DEGRO Test where reversed, as LA technicians scored a higher response with a mean=1.58 (medium), while Cobalt technicians reported a below average score with a mean of 1.45. Conclusion Results of satisfaction show that technicians were neutral about the quality of life, general conditions and their mental health at their workplace. Despite some standout negative effects related to the job such as anxiety, distress and caregivers’ burden, results show a decency of offer by technicians to patients that includes different aspects of treatment. The RTTs recommend enhancing their salary, followed by time management and improving the equipment used, then, some technicians suggested training in psychology to understand the patient’s emotional needs. Purpose or Objective Pancreatic cancer is a debilitating cancer with unfavourable survival rates compared to other cancers. Survival rates of patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer is typically short where the length of time between diagnosis and death is usually less than 6 months. The overall survival at 1 year is approximately 20% and at 5 years is approximately 5%(Goldsmith et al, 2018). In clinical practice, patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer are often treated with conventional fractionated chemo-radiotherapy which is protracted and associated with a poor toxicity profile. At present Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR) is being used with increasing frequency and has shown favourable clinical results. This study looks at the efficacy of SABR within this patient cohort in terms of overall survival (OS) and post radiotherapy (RT) toxicity. Materials and Methods A retrospective review of all patients with pancreatic cancer (T1-3N0M0) who were treated with a dedicated robotic stereotactic RT machine at our institution was conducted. All patients were treated under free breathing with real time motion tracking image guided RT. The OS was calculated using Kaplan-Meier method and the post RT toxicity data was scored following the CTCAE v4.0 protocol. Assuming α / β =10 for tumour control, the biological equivalent doses (BED) of prescribed treatment were calculated. For subgroup analysis of prognostic factors, medians were used to catergorise patients into 2 groups: ≤ median and >median. A Mantel-Cox log rank analysis was used to assess OS between these groups categories: high, medium and low. Subgroup analyses were conducted for the demographic variable. PO-2318 Clinical outcomes following stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy to inoperable pancreatic cancer J. Duong 1 , M. Harrison 1 , Y. Tsang 1 1 Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, Oncology, Northwood, United Kingdom

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