Background: The start point of this study was the sentence that a patient used: 'my pains had gone with MRI'. It is known that MRI has not a usage area in treatment, yet. Perhaps, the feeling of loss of pain was only a perception. But we want to search the demographic factors that make the perception of loss of pain. The purpose of this study was to determine the consciousness level of the society about MRI.
Material/methods: This prospective survey study included 302 (107 men, 195 women; mean age 43.11±15.18 years) patients who were referred to the radiology clinic to undergo MRI.
Results: Almost half of the patients were illiterate and graduated from a primary school. Low level of education was more frequent in women than in men. Most of the patients declared that MRI would diagnose their disease. Among all the patients surveyed, 209 of 302 patients indicated no changes in the degree of pain before and after MRI, 30 indicated increased pain, 62 indicated decreased pain, and one patient did not answer the question. Most of the patients who declared decreasing pain had lumbar or cervical MRI.
Conclusions: The function of MRI was known by the patients independently from their educational status. The degree of decrease in pain was higher in the 'treatment' answer. Perhaps the relatively higher percentage was a result of the expectations about treatment and was related with psychological motivation.
Keywords: Ethnology; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Perception.