Evaluation of Information on Body Donation Promotion at Official Websites of Turkish Anatomy Departments

Abstract

Raising public awareness of body donation is crucial for countries like Turkey that have struggling donation programs. The official websites of anatomy departments may contribute to achieving this goal. Nevertheless, previous studies reported institutional or individual reluctance of departments or anatomists, respectively, due to an expectation of adverse publicity. This study aimed to investigate whether the official websites of Turkish anatomy departments provided information on body donation and analyzed the content of these websites. Websites of anatomy departments at 100 medical faculties were evaluated. Only 12 departments (12%) provided information on body donation with varying content. A thematic analysis of the information provided revealed five main themes. These were (1) legal aspects, (2) significance, (3) acceptance/rejection criteria, (4) availability, and (5) redirection. All departments (n = 12, 100%) outlined the legal aspects of body donation, seven departments (58%) highlighted the significance of body donation, seven departments (58%) provided contact information for potential donors, five departments (41%) covered acceptance/rejection criteria, and three departments (25%) provided a link to the official website of the Turkish Society of Anatomy and Clinical Anatomy. Thus, Turkish anatomy departments were reluctant to provide information on body donation, and the content of provided information varied greatly among departments. This lack of information, coordination, and participation in existing awareness activities for body donation in anatomy department websites may be contributing to the low numbers of body donations and donor registrations seen nationally. Anat Sci Educ 14: 816-827.

Understanding beliefs, preferences and actions amongst potential body donors

“…One option might be though optimizing medical school's websites and the ease and searchability from a potential donor's perspective. A review in Turkey found a lack of content might be contributing towards low body donation numbers (Ok & Gürses, 2021).…”

The impact of enhancing publicity and commemoration of body donors at Zhengzhou University, China

“…In addition, the term “memorial” is used for spaces and objects that serve to remember and honor those whose bodies are used for science research and in the anatomy education 22 . Commemorations and memorials in honor of body donors have existed in several European universities since the late medieval period 23–27 . However, the exact time point at which China began to hold ceremonies for body donors is difficult to verify.…”

“…22 Commemorations and memorials in honor of body donors have existed in several European universities since the late medieval period. [23][24][25][26][27] However, the exact time point at which China began to hold ceremonies for body donors is difficult to verify. Encouragingly, a diverse forms of commemorations and memorials for body donors have evolved in many cities in China since the 2000s.…”

Graphic medicine meets human anatomy: The potential role of comics in raising whole body donation awareness in Italy and beyond. A pilot study

“…Furthermore, with the use of virtual body dissection, spatial perception and visualization of neurovascular structures will never be as clear as in cadaveric dissection (Jiang et al, 2020). According to several studies, cadaverless anatomy education might negatively affect the clinical skills of future surgeons, since dissection allows the practice of novel surgical techniques before they are performed on living patients (Ok & Gürses, 2021; Jiga et al, 2022). However, the shortage of donated bodies, in Italy and elsewhere, is currently an issue, especially compared with the increased number of medical students (Porzionato et al, 2012; Estai & Bunt, 2016; Boscolo‐Berto et al, 2020).…”

“…In the United States the main reason for body donation is altruism (Mueller et al, 2021), whereas in China, body donation is motivated by factors such as the desire to support medical education and reduce the family's funeral burden (Jiang et al, 2020). In other countries, body donation is hampered by institutional and individual reluctance due to adverse publicity and lack of information (Ok & Gürses, 2021). Different factors were responsible for decreased input of human post‐mortem bodies to medical schools during the Covid‐19 pandemic: some medical schools across the countries suspended body donation programs or did not accept donated bodies (Brassett et al, 2020; Pather et al, 2020; Manzanares‐Céspedes et al, 2021), and donors registration lowered due to the fear of approaching the medical schools (Rajasekhar & Dinesh Kumar, 2021).…”