Attitudes, knowledge, and willingness to donate organs among Indian nursing students

Abstract

Globally, there is an acute shortage of organs for transplantation. Health professionals play an important role in raising awareness, motivating, and subsequently increasing the organ donation rates. Research related to nursing students′ attitudes toward organ donation is limited from India. We aimed to assess undergraduate nursing students′ knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to donate organs. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out among conveniently selected undergraduate nursing students (n = 271) using self-reported questionnaires. All the participants were aware of organ donation. A majority (n = 251, 94%) of them were unaware of organ donation law. The mean score indicates that 66.7% of the participants had adequate level of knowledge [mean ± standard deviation (SD), 7.34 ± 1.61] and 72.3% hold positive attitudes (mean ± SD, 83.9 ± 1.01) toward organ donation. Statistically significant correlation (r = 0.265, P <0.001) was observed between knowledge and attitudes of the participants toward organ donation. The findings suggest the need for revising the nursing curricula to prepare the future nurses′ competent in encountering the issues related to organ donation and fostering.