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Quartal 1999 Influence
of Psychosocial Factors on Attitudes Toward Organ
Donation in Health Professionals and Other People There is an increasing discrepancy between the need for transplantable organs and the supply in our country. The reasons behind this problem are probably manifold, some would be connected with the attitudes of people. This investigation is concerned with the question of the relation of certain background characteristics to the different attitudes. A questionnaire consisting of 37 items that covered the areas: knowledge concerning transplantation, reactions toward death and organ donation, ethical and religious issues, and sociodemographic parameters was answered by 1705 participants. The mean age was 25 years with a range from 17 to 68. 80% of the participants where students, about 50% of the subjects had a medical education. In general nearly 50% of the medically educated and 27% of the people without medical education were willing to donate their organs after death, but only 29% resp. 7% had a donor card. People with strong religious bonds were willing to donate organs in a significant less amount. The predominant motive against signing a donor card was the fear of being given up too soon (35%). Another important one was the indifference with regard to the subject of transplantation (27%). A ranking of willingness concerning the donation of different organs reached from kidney (76%), liver (70%), lung (66%), heart (65%) to cornea (55%). The results show tremendous differences between attitude and behavior which can be understood on the background of psychological defenses especially concerning death and death anxiety. Other motives against organ donation were religious beliefs, and fear of being declared dead too soon. In contrary to most surveys there was no strong relationship between the attitude toward organ donation and age in our study which may result from a cohort phenomenon. How the level of education influences the attitudes would of course be of great interest but cannot be answered with this data. Key words: Organ donation, attitudes, public opinion, health professionals Prof. Dr. H.-W. Künsebeck © 1999 Pabst Science Publishers |
