Background Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is potentially considered as the greatest invention in the world. In addition, all the people in the medical field have been surprised by the capability of MRI in the past 25 years. There has been a massive increase in the use of MRI in the clinical field. More than 80 million MRI procedures occur every year around the globe. Patients who are undergoing MRI examinations infrequently experience anxiety as a consequence of the procedure or the environment. Reducing patient anxiety is considered as one of the most common concerns affecting the outcome of the MRI scan. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of procedure explanation on controlling anxiety levels in adolescent patients undergoing MRI.

Methods The Institutional Review Board (IRB) ethics committee approved this cross-sectional study. Convenient sampling techniques were used to select 37 adolescent patients (19 females and 18 male) who attended the MRI appointment unit at the Medical Imaging Department of King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Three tools were used to collect data: the sociodemographic data sheet, patient assessment knowledge sheet, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) questionnaire. STAI is a self-report test designed to measure patient anxiety level; 40 questions are divided into two subcategories; 20 state (defined as fear, nervousness, discomfort, etc, and how the person feels right now), and 20 traits (defined as stress, worry, discomfort, etc, that the person experiences on a daily basis).

Results The state anxiety level showed a statistically significant difference in patients’ knowledge between the pre-test and post-test with or without instruction. For the group with instruction, their anxiety level significantly reduced. The trait anxiety level showed no significant difference between pre-test and post-test with or without instruction.

Conclusion Because of lack of awareness about the procedural instructions for the patient before undergoing MRI, it may affect the procedure prognosis and outcome. Our suggestion for the future is to increase awareness about MRI and to improve communication skills of MRI staff to educate the patient in a good way to reduce patient anxiety.