Perceptions of a university's faculty members on organ donation.

Background: . Availability of donated organs may save lives of people with end-stage disease. However, multiple barriers exist for obtaining donated organs such as insufficient knowledge and lack of a positive attitude towards organ donation. We assessed the knowledge and attitude regarding organ donation among faculty members of a university in India.

Methods: . We did this observational, cross-sectional study from December 2017 to January 2018. A structured, close-ended questionnaire consisting of 20 items was used to assess knowledge, attitude and practices regarding organ donation. Data for 170 participants were analysed using SPSS version 21. Unpaired t-test was used to compare the knowledge and attitude score among different variables.

Results: . A statistically significant difference was found between the attitude score of graduate and postgraduate faculty (p=0.003), as well as between graduate and doctoral faculty (p=0.001). We found that 5.3% of participants had already donated organs, 12.9% had pledged to donate and 63.5% of participants had expressed willingness to donate organs.

Conclusions: . There is a need to increase the knowledge regarding organ donation as most people have a good attitude towards organ donation, but their knowledge was insufficient and at times inaccurate.