Concerns regarding eye donation among health seekers attending a reputed eye care institution in North Kerala

Abstract

Background: Creating awareness regarding eye donation is the prime factor responsible for promoting voluntary pledging and donation of eyes. Planning awareness campaigns is determined by the prevalence of dearth of understanding of eye donation. Aims and Objectives: To assess the awareness and perception among eye care seekers toward eye donation. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among patients attending ophthalmology outpatient department seeking eye care, using a predesigned, pretested, semistructured, selfadministered questionnaire. Results: The study group included 250 participants. The male to female ratio was 1:1. A total of 94.4% participants had heard about eye donation. A total of 71.7% were willing to donate their eyes; 90.3% had not pledged their eyes; 63.7% were ready to implement eye donation as a family custom. Willingness, consent, and wish to make eye donation as a family custom was more among males (P = 0.049), graduates (P = 0.013), Christians (P = 0.019), those who were aware of the subject (P = 0.00), and who were single (P = 0.00). Only 7.6% had faced discouragement from the society or kith and kin when pledging of eye was considered. A total of 66.1% knew about the existence of a registered eye bank in the institute. Nobility was the main motivation (87.7%). A total of 61.8% felt that donated eye can give vision to the needy. Conclusion: This study revealed that eye care seekers were well aware of eye donation with a favorable attitude towards it; most of them were inclined to pledge their eyes. Counseling of this receptive group and identifying interested candidates among them as volunteers for eye donation is helpful in promoting eye donation among the community.

Keywords

• Awareness; beneficiary; corneal transplantation; eye bank; eye donation; pledging.