208.5: Donor card cancellation reasons in Iran.

Abstract

Background: In Iran annually less than one-third of brain dead cases are donated. In 1397 around 6000 potential organs were buried whereas based on statistics daily 7-10 people on the transplant list die due to lack of organs. Awareness raising and cultural activities to increase organ donation are significantly effective. An effective factor is an organ donor card. It is reported that sometimes donor card holders, specifically teenagers, regret their registration and request card’s cancellation. This study was done to determine the most important factors affecting the donor card’s cancellation request. Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study on reasons for donor card cancellation requests by people registering through ehda.center network from February 2015 until the study date of February 2019 (4-year period). All information of registered people is available through the database. People who wish to cancel their registration do so by emailing the center. For this study, 1800 emails were studied by 4 researchers. Some emails were sent twice, incomplete, or unrelated. Overall 425 emails were evaluated. Results were analyzed using SPSS21 descriptively using Pierson formula. Results: Raw information showed that in 4 years donor card requests from this network were 1409986 and 425 requested cancellation. 54.62% of card receivers were women. Demographic information is represented in table and graph 1 and 2. Results of received emails of cancellation requests are represented in table2. Based on Pearson’s deviation, there is a significant reversed correlation between age and reason for cancellation request meaning that in those at lower ages the reason for the cancellation request was family’s disapproval. (P<0.000) Conclusions: Based on results the most common reason for cancellation request has been family’s disapproval. Also, there is a significant reversed correlation between age and reason for cancellation request meaning that family’s influence on card cancellation has been greater at lower ages. Therefore awareness rising is necessary among the society and organ donation should be discussed in families. Keywords: Organ donor card, Iranian Society of Organ Donation Iranian Organ Donation Society.