Knowledge, attitudes and behaviors regarding organ donation and transplantation: A survey among first year medical students

The purpose of this study was to examine the medical students’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors’ regarding organ donation and transplantation. Out of 143 first year medical students 103 (72.0%) completed a 29-item self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire included items on demographics, knowledge, attitude and behaviors of the students. Ten questions on organ donation and transplantation (total of 100 points) have been asked and the students' levels of knowledge have been evaluated. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, students-t test and chi-square tests. The mean knowledge point was 49.78±16.91 for boys and 57.41±19.15 for girls, and there was statistical significance (p<0.05). Regarding the knowledge of which organs and tissues could be transplanted, the first three answers were kidneys (55.3%), heart (48.5%), and corneas (47.6%). Of the 103 students 35 (34%) were willing to donate organs, 52 (50.5%) were uncertain and 16 (15.5%) were contradict to organ donation. Willingness to organ donation was higher in girls (p<0.05). The first three reasons for not donating were fear of organ removal before brain death, religious reasons, and desire to maintain body integrity. A majority of the students (80.4%) would accept a donated organ if transplantation was necessary. However, as to the willingness to donate organs, in total %2.9 of the students had already signed a donor card. Regarding the routes of obtaining information on transplantation, a majority of the students cited media, school education, and health personnel. All of the students were thinking that their knowledge on organ transplantation was insufficient or partially sufficient, and most of them (89.3%) stated that they would like to know more about it.
These results shows that the knowledge of the future health care professionals were not adequate about transplantation and organ donation.