Assessment of the determinants of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of Ethiopian Medical Students towards ethical Cadaver Dissection

Abstract

Introduction: Anatomy is one of the essential basic medical sciences and a key to understand the practice of medicine. Its stduy has been conventionally based around the use of cadaver dissection. Several findings ensured that dissection experience significantly improve KAP towards ethical use of human body. But, they are limited to such effect on early impression and single institution. The effect of dissection experience on KAP towards ethical use of cadaver in education and research in the subsequent years of study and evaluation of factors associated to them are lacking. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Ethiopian Medical Students towards ethical Cadaver Dissection. Method: Multi-centered cross-sectional study design was implemented. The study was conducted in selected Ethiopian Medical Schools among 279 Pre-clinical Medical Students of Jimma University, Addis Ababa University, Saint Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College and University of Gondar from April 01 to April 30, 2019. Data were collected by a structured and pre-tested questionnaire and analysis was done by SPSS version 20.0. Results: A total of 279 respondents were included in the study out of whom 156 (55.9%) were male and 123(44.1%) were female and most of the respondents were in the age groups of ≥ 21years (SD = 0.492 and variance = 0.242). The study result showed that about 45.5%, 48.7% and 39.1% of the study participants had adequate knowledge, favorable attitude, and good practice towards ethical cadaver dissection, respectively. Respecting cadaver as first patient (AOR = 2.098, 95%CI: 1.245-3.531), attending dissection session regularly (AOR = 0.572, 95%CI: 0.338-0.968), actively dissecting cadaver (AOR = 1.459, 95%CI: 0.284-0.742), utmost respect to cadaver (AOR = 0.720, 95%CI: 0.431:1.238), practice > 2 Hrs/day (AOR = 2.224, 95% CI: 0.947-5.228) and apprehension to cadaver dissection (AOR = 1.658, 95%CI: 0.537-0.962) were significantly associated with Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Ethiopian Preclinical Medical Students towards Cadaver Dissection. Conclusion: Almost half of our study participants had favorable attitude towards ethical cadaver dissection. However, only 39.1% and 45.5% of our participants had adequate knowledge and good practice towards similar issues, respectively. Respecting cadaver as first patient, attending dissection session regularly, actively dissecting cadaver, utmost respect to cadaver, practice > 2 Hrs/day and apprehension to cadaver dissection were significantly associated factors among Ethiopian Preclinical Medical Students towards ethical Cadaver Dissection. Furthermore, though the proportion was low, exposure to cadaver dissection had lasting retention on bettter KAP towards human body usage. We envisage such experience will be translated into humanistic patient care. Keywords: Cadaver dissection, Medical students, Ethiopia