Brain death versus irreversible cardiac arrest--the background and consequences of young people's opinions on stating death in Polish transplantology.

Background: Brain death and irreversible cardiac arrest (ICA) are legally valid diagnoses obligatory for stating organ donors' death in Poland. Their misinterpretation may affect one's attitude toward organ donation. We assessed young people's knowledge and attitudes toward stating death in transplantology and their impact on attitude toward organ transplantation.

Methods: A total of 400 medical and 400 nonmedical students from public universities in Kraków, Poland, participated. Data were collected with a questionnaire examining demographic factors and transplantologic issues.

Results: Brain death diagnosis has a stronger association with stating death in transplantology than ICA, although the level of trust for this diagnosis remains relatively low among nonmedical respondents (38.5% vs 78.5%). Professional knowledge about stating brain death did not correlate with the level of trust for said diagnosis as strongly as it was expected, suggesting the presence of alternate contributing factors, some identified as doubts about brain death criteria (31.5%), distrust for the medical staff's education (25%), and objectivity (20%).

Conclusions: The number of nonpositive attitudes toward organ transplantation was significantly higher among respondents unwilling to accept brain death as the death of a human being, a statement proven to be related to one's opinion about the reliability of said diagnosis, one's awareness of an alternative diagnosis of ICA, and one's general transplantologic knowledge. However, a low number of respondents acknowledging ICA as the only diagnosis valid for stating death of a cadaveric donor (7.6%) suggests that the majority of young Poles are willing to accept brain death as an equally valid, if not more significant, diagnosis.