EVALUATION OF THE AWARENESS OF STEM CELL DONATION

Abstract

Objective: Many diseases, including bone marrow cancers (ALL, AML, etc.), lymphomas, hereditary anemia, and immune deficiencies, can be treated with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Donors with HLA match are first sought from the patient’s siblings, parents, and close relatives. If a suitable donor cannot be found within the family, the search for unrelated volunteer donors begins. HSC banks were created in order to pool volunteer donors. More than 40 million stem cell donors and 136 banks affiliated and collaborate with the World Association of Donor Banks (WMDA). These banks seek to find the most suitable stem cell donor for the patient by collecting tissue groups from the pool of donors and comparing them to tissue groups from patients who applied completely voluntarily. The purpose of this study is to determine the knowledge and attitudes toward stem cell donation of 5th year students at the Istanbul Faculty of Medicine and randomly selected adult members of society. Material and Methods: The study included 285 students and 168 adults. Both groups completed a questionnaire with 21 questions using the interview under observation method. Results: In a statistical comparison of student and public participants in terms of stem cell donation, the student group was found to be far more aware than the public participant group. When compared to the public participant group, the student group’s desire to be stem cell donors was found to be very significant. The school in the student group and the written/visual media in the public participant group were extremely important in raising awareness. Conclusion: The survey study we conducted revealed that the knowledge level of the public was insufficient, and the knowledge level of medical students was deficient. Information about stem cell donation should be disseminated in the written/visual media, in health institutions, and during the education period, in order to raise societal awareness and increase the number of donors in comparison to the country’s population.