Awareness regarding body and organ donation amongst the population of an urban city in India

Abstract

Purpose : Bodies for purpose of dissection and organs for transplantation surgeries are needed for education of medical students and treatment of cases of end-stage organ failure. However deceased organ donation rate in India is very dismal. In the present study the authors assess the knowledge and attitude of the people living in an urban city in India towards organ and body donation. Materials/Methods : A questionnaire was distributed amongst all willing patients and their relatives attending the out-patient Department at our Hospital. This was followed by an awareness session wherein the researchers discussed body and organ donation and its need in India. Information sheet was handed to all and the willing respondents were given eye and body donation forms, and donor cards. Result: 41/65 people consented to participate. 41.5%, 31.7%, 12.2% and 12.2% had obtained knowledge regarding organ donation from newspaper, television, family members and internet respectively. 26.8% claimed that they were imparted knowledge by health care professionals. 78%, 53.7% and 19.5% were aware about eye, kidney and liver donations respectively. 17.1% were aware of body and lung donation each. Awareness of donation of other organs was found to be in the range between 4.9% to 14.6%. 43.9% were willing to be organ donors and 3 persons filled the body donation forms. Conclusion: Newspapers, healthcare professionals could be utilized to further the awareness regarding body and organ donation. Carrying out awareness programmes will help to reach information to each individual, clarifying any myths and increasing understanding and motivation levels among

Knowledge and attitude towards organ donation among people seeking health care in Kozhikode, Kerala, India

“…More than 90% of the study population knew that eyes and kidneys can be donated. Similar findings were reported in the study done in South Kerala [10], but in the study done in Pune [18] knowledge about kidney donation was found to be very less compared to the present study. 66.2% of study population of Saleem T et al [19] and 95.4% of participants of Soubhanneyaz A et al [20] were aware about kidney donation programs.…”

“…Most of the respondents 64.2% in the present study had good attitude and thought that organ donation should be promoted but only 47.8% showed willingness to donate organs. This finding is almost similar to the studies done in South Kerala [10] and Pune [18]; but much less than that reported in Chennai [4] and Mangalore [11]. More proportion of subjects in the present study were not selective in their desire to donate organs which was found to be similar to findings in the study conducted by Ramadurga UY and Gupta A [21].…”

Awareness and Attitude towards Organ Donation: A Community Survey in Urban and Rural Populations, from Sangli district of Maharashtra

“…Similar observation were made by other such Indian studies, people were generally aware about eye donation followed by kidney donation. [11][12][13] The ex- tensive mass media campaigns using celebrities in recent years might be the reason behind such awareness.…”

“…11 Similar state of poor awareness was observed in studies conducted in Maharashtra. 12,13 However, the studies that have made efforts to understand the issue in India are very few and these are largely limited to urban area. Any comparative studies for better understanding of urban-rural difference are ever rarer.…”

Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding organ donation among adult population of urban Puducherry, South India

“…Similar results were found in studies done in Kanchipuram (86%), Ahmedabad (86%), and Maharashtra (78%). [ 5 18 19 ] Studies done in Kerala showed that almost all the participants have heard about organ donation. Higher awareness regarding the term organ donation among our study population can be attributed to the higher educational status of the participants.…”