The relationship between body donation and attitudes toward death and altruism in Changsha City in China.

Abstract

In recent years, China has been facing a shortage of cadavers for teaching medical students. A better comprehension of the attitudes and factors influencing the general public's opinion toward body donation would be invaluable for planning and implementing body donation programs. Although altruistic attitude and attitudes toward death have received considerable attention in recent years globally, they have been largely understudied in China. Herein, the potential relationship between attitudes toward altruism and death, and willingness toward whole-body donation in a sample of university students in Changsha City in China were analyzed. A multi-stage sampling method was adopted to recruit 478 Chinese college students from two universities: the Medical College of Hunan Normal University (n = 272) and the College of Civil engineering of Hunan University (n = 206). The study participants were assessed by a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R-C) questionnaire, and the altruism scale. Moreover, Chinese University students demonstrated moderate willingness to donate their bodies. The mean score of the willingness of study participants to donate their bodies was 3.138 ± 0.933 (5-point Likert scale). Acceptance toward death, gender, and type of university were positive factors, whereas fear of death negatively affected willingness toward body donation. Regression analysis showed that factors, including gender (β = 0.237), type of university (β = 0.193), natural acceptance (β = 0.177), and fear of death (β = -0.160) influenced willingness toward body donation. Overall, the present study provides hitherto undocumented evidence on factors influencing willingness toward body donation among Chinese university students, which can assist in designing public awareness programs for encouraging body donation.