Knowledge and attitude toward organ donation among medical and nonmedical (Engineering) students in Bhopal, India

Abstract

Background: India is facing a massive dearth of organs for transplantation. Nationally, with a population of 1.2 billion people, the organ donation rate (ODR) per million population (PMP) for India stands at 0.26 PMP. Although limited knowledge is considered as one of the major factors for low donation rates, studies also quote that knowledge may not have any impact on positive attitude and practice toward organ donation. Furthermore, countries with presumed consent policy like the one in Spain and Croatia have much higher ODRs (36 and 36.5 PMP) as compared to India, which has informed consent policy. Objectives: The objectives of this study is to understand correlation between knowledge and attitude toward organ donation among medical and nonmedical students and identify barriers to deceased organ donation; to look into participant's perception for adoption of presumed consent policy in Indian context; and understanding the acceptance of donor acknowledgment in the form of organ incentivization. Materials and Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was carried out among the students of medical and engineering colleges. A total of 100 students from each institute were interviewed randomly constituting a total sample of 600 students. A pre-designed, pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire was used for collecting the data. The collected data were entered into Epi Info 7, and statistical tests were applied to find significant differences between two groups. Results: Of the total 600 students, 55.7% were male while 44.3% were female. The mean age of the study population was 19.73 ± 1.24 standard deviation years with majority of them (90.5%) under 21 years. Age and gender found to have a significant association with knowledge on organ donation. Study revealed a positive correlation between knowledge and attitude in both medical (r = 0.189) and nonmedical groups (r = 0.21). Almost 51.7% of students were in favor of adoption of Spain's “opt-out policy” policy, while 82.6% supported donor acknowledgment to increase the rates of organ donation in India. Most common source of information about organ donation identified in the study was television (71%), newspaper (38.5%), and doctor (33.7%). Conclusion: Positive correlation between knowledge and attitude suggests that a well-designed awareness campaign can improve attitude and practice toward organ donation, and successful examples from countries such as Spain and Singapore can be adopted in national context, to increase ODRs and saving millions of lives waiting for organs from deceased donors.