ObjectiveTo study the examinees' cognitive level of the X-ray radiation, and to provide references for popularizing radiation protection knowledge. MethodWe chose patients who were checked in the Department of Radiology in our hospital between August 30 and October 29, 2013 as our study subjects, and carried out investigation by anonymous questionnaires. The investigation content included the respondents' basic information, ways to obtain the radiation knowledge, how well the patients knew about the fundamental radiation knowledge and their attitudes towards radiological examination and so on. A total of 2 315 patients were investigated, and 2 315 questionnaires were issued. Finally all questionnaires were retreated. ResultsAmong the 2 315 patients, 2026 (87.52%) knew the radiation symbol and 1 821 (78.66%) knew that X-ray radiation was harmful to the human body. Different age, gender, occupation, educational level and previous X-ray examination made significant differences in the fundamental knowledge on X-ray (P<0.05) . Attitudes towards X-ray examination was significantly different due to different age, occupation, and educational level (P<0.05) . Most examinees got the X-ray fundamental radiation knowledge from the publicity and medical staff in hospitals. ConclusionsTo make the examinees keep right attitudes and behaviors in radiographic examination, further effective methods of popularizing the basic knowledge of radiation should be carried out. Those publicity and medical staff in hospitals are the main force in the popularization of radiation knowledge.