Knowledge and attitude of medical doctors to kidney donation

Abstract

Background : Medical practitioners by virtue of their training and exposure are expected to educate and counsel patients and their relatives about kidney donation. Therapeutic strategies for patients with end-stage renal disease are dialysis and kidney transplantation. Hemodialysis is done sub-optimally because it's expensive with resultant poor quality of life and death. Kidney transplantation, although also expensive, offers better quality of life with a major drawback being unavailability of kidney donors. A poor knowledge about kidney donation in itself may partly be responsible for low donation rates. This survey was carried out to assess knowledge and attitude of medical doctors in a tertiary hospital to kidney donation and transplantation. Methods : A cross-sectional descriptive study carried out among medical doctors from the Departments of Surgery, Family Medicine and Internal Medicine, in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. Knowledge and attitude towards kidney donation and transplantation was assessed using pretested self-administered questionnaires. Results : One hundred and twelve doctors participated in the study with age range being 24 –55 years, 51(45.5%) of the doctors had a good knowledge of kidney donation and transplantation while 61 (54.5%) had fair knowledge. Sixtynine (61.6%) were willing to donate a kidney with the most common reason being to save lives. Conclusion: Knowledge of kidney donation and transplantation among doctors is relatively good; however same cannot be said for their attitude, with constraints to kidney donation being fear of post-surgical complications and fear of developing kidney disease in the future. Key words : Kidney, donation, transplantation, doctors