Knowledge and Attitudes of Military Nursing Student Toward Organ Donation

Abstract

Introduction: Transplantation is still the acceptance to treatment organ failure. Like other countries Thailand also has organ shortage problem. Increasing the number of organ donors is essential among young generation. The knowledge and attitude of future nursing student are importance to increase organ donors. Objective: The purpose of this descriptive research was to study the relationships between knowledge and attitude of military nursing student toward organ donation. Methods: The target population were 862 nursing students from the Royal Thai Arm Forced (RTAF) Nursing College. The research instruments were three forms of questionnaire; the personal data, the knowledge and attitude toward organ donation. The reliability was accepted as 0.80 and 0.86. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistic, Chi-square test and Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. Results: The knowledge of organ donation was significantly associated with the age (p< 0.001), year of studying (p< 0.001), experience of knowing someone in family donate liver (< 0.01), and data or information of donation receiving from relatives (p< 0.05). Attitudes toward organ donation was significantly associated with gender (p< 0.05), carrying donor card (p< 0.001), the experience of knowing someone in family was a deceased donor (p< 0.05) or living liver donation (p< 0.001). The correlation between knowledge and attitude toward organ donation are significant positive correlation (p< 0.01). Conclusion: Nursing students need the knowledge and gain experience of organ donation to help and change attitude toward organ donation.