Attitudes, knowledge, and willingness to donate organs among Indian nursing students

Abstract

Globally, there is an acute shortage of organs for transplantation. Health professionals play an important role in raising awareness, motivating, and subsequently increasing the organ donation rates. Research related to nursing students' attitudes toward organ donation is limited from India. We aimed to assess undergraduate nursing students' knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to donate organs. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out among conveniently selected undergraduate nursing students (n = 271) using self-reported questionnaires. All the participants were aware of organ donation. A majority (n = 251, 94%) of them were unaware of organ donation law. The mean score indicates that 66.7% of the participants had adequate level of knowledge [mean ± standard deviation (SD), 7.34 ± 1.61] and 72.3% hold positive attitudes (mean ± SD, 83.9 ± 1.01) toward organ donation. Statistically significant correlation (r = 0.265, P <0.001) was observed between knowledge and attitudes of the participants toward organ donation. The findings suggest the need for revising the nursing curricula to prepare the future nurses' competent in encountering the issues related to organ donation and fostering.

<p>Do Health Sciences Students Have the Appropriate Knowledge and Attitude to Advance Organ Donation in Ethiopia? Cross-Sectional Study</p>

“…Knowledge items were adopted from similar articles. 5,8,9 The majority of the questions measure the general knowledge of students regarding organ donation and ethical concerns. A total of 7 knowledgemeasuring questions were prepared in scale with 4-point categorical options "Yes", "No", "don't know" and "not sure".…”

Evaluation of the Effect of Clinical Scenario-Based Educational Workshop and Reflection on the Knowledge and Attitude of Head Nurses and Clinical Supervisors toward in the Brain Death and Organ Donation

“…The results of studies conducted in other countries also suggested that nurses' knowledge in the area of brain death and organ donation is at low level. In this regard, the results of studies conducted by Naçar et al (2015) in Turkey, Khalid et al (2019) in Pakistan, Poreddi et al (2016) in India and Huern et al (2016) in Malaysia showed that nurses' knowledge of organ donation was at low level and educational interventions were needed in this area (11)(12)(13)(14). Nursing staff can play an important role in the organ donation process and the most studies conducted in Iran on nurses' knowledge and attitudes about brain death and organ donation are descriptive and limited interventional studies have been conducted in this area, and these interventional studies have used only lecture form of education and less modern educational method of clinical scenariobased method leading to active and deep learning has been used (15)(16)(17).…”

Knowledge, Attitude, and Performance of ICU, CCU, and Emergency Wards Nurses in Kermanshah, Iran, regarding Organ Donation

“…Organ failure is a major concern worldwide, so promoting organ donation in all countries is essential [ 10 ]. Although organ donation is a personal issue, its process is complex and multidimensional, including medical, legal, ethical, organizational, and social aspects [ 10 , 11 ]. Nurses are regarded as the key factors in facilitating the organ donation process, which can help prevent the loss of transplantable organs by obtaining family consent for organ donation.…”

“…Therefore, increasing the knowledge of nurses regarding the rules of organ donation is crucial [ 10 – 12 ]. Several studies have examined the knowledge and attitude of nurses regarding organ transplantation [ 5 , 11 , 14 ]. According to a study in Sweden, the performance of nurses working in ICU was significantly associated with the increase or decrease of the number of organ transplants [ 13 ].…”

“…The results of a study in Ireland indicated that some nurses were not aware of the process of organ donation as well as the diagnosis of brain death [ 15 ]. In a study in India, about two-thirds of nursing students had sufficient knowledge and a positive attitude toward organ donation; however, 94% of the subjects were not aware of the rules regarding organ donation [ 11 ]. The results of a study in China showed that 33.4% of nurses were willing to donate their organs after their death [ 12 ].…”