Radiology faculty reported the highest rates of work-related stress and the lowest rates of job satisfaction of any staff group, according to a recent radiology department survey. 

A group from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center surveyed radiology department employees across four professional roles to identify role-specific contributors to workplace stress and satisfaction. The findings suggest a shift in strategy is needed to address burnout and stress, noted lead author Rama Ayyala, MD, and colleagues. 

"Generalized wellness initiatives targeting resilience or other individual factors are unlikely to address the survey’s identified dominant stressors," the group noted in their research published August 26 in the American Journal of Roentgenology. 

Burnout and workplace stress remain major challenges in radiology, but prior research has focused primarily on physicians, with limited data on the broader radiology workforce, the authors wrote. They added that understanding role-specific contributors could help identify organizational intervention targets.

The researchers administered an anonymous electronic survey in October 2024 to all 400 employees of the radiology department at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Of 290 respondents (72%), 46 were clinical faculty, 159 were technologists, 21 were patient service staff including nurses, and 50 were other staff. Respondents rated contributors on a five-point Likert scale; responses of "a moderate amount" or "a great deal" were classified as positive. 

According to the results, clinical faculty had the highest stress and lowest satisfaction: 

The leading stress contributors across roles were operational: for faculty, overall work volume (53%), complexity of imaging examinations (53%), and inappropriate use of STAT and ASAP (STAT/ASAP) orders (47%); for technologists, top contributors were overall work volume (69%), inappropriate STAT/ASAP orders (64%), and requests for inappropriate examinations (51%); for nurses, top contributors were inadequate pay (44%) and inadequate facilities (41%). 

The most common contributors to workplace satisfaction for faculty included positive impact on patient care and outcomes (89%), good relationships with colleagues (79%), and perception of doing a good job by colleagues (72%); for technologists, top contributors included positive interactions with patients and families (92%), good relationships with colleagues (82%), and positive impact on patients and families (82%); and for nurses, top contributors were positive interactions with patients and families (88%) and positive impact on patient care and outcomes (88%), with six additional contributors tied at 82%. 

"Across faculty, technologists, and nurses, the most common stressors were generally system-level issues including modifiable operational or workflow challenges," the authors wrote. 

Clinical decision support for order appropriateness, demand-based staffing, and AI-assisted workflow tools hold potential to address the dominant system-level stressors, the group suggested. Moreover, systems’ senior leadership must be engaged in ensuring appropriate facilities, technology, and pay for workers across roles, it added. 

The full study is available here.