The Knowledge of Nursing Students About Organ Donation and the Effect of the Relevant Training on Their Knowledge

The positive attitude of nursing students toward organ donation will affect the number of transplantations to be performed in the future. This study was conducted to determine the knowledge of the students studying at Kafkas University Faculty of Health Sciences Nursing Department on organ donation and the effect of the relevant training on their knowledge.

This study with a pretest-post-test design was completed with 352 nursing department students in the 2016-2017 academic year. A total of 45 minutes of structured training was provided to the students by a physician who was trained and experienced on organ transplantation. A pretest and post-test form was used to evaluate the knowledge of the students before and after the training, respectively. Data were analyzed by evaluating the numbers, percentages, and significance of the difference between 2 percentages in the SPSS 20 software.

The mean age of the students was 21.25 ± 1.89 years; 52% were male, 31.8% were first-year students. We found that a relative of 6.5% of the students was waiting for an organ and the ethnic identity did not affect the decision of organ donation in 69.9%. When asked about who could be organ donors, 71.9% of the students answered as cadaver and living donors where blood and tissues were found to be a match, 33.5% as the first-degree relatives of the patient, and 18.5% as cadaver donors. Head trauma-related brain death was the most common answer to "In which case can organs be taken?" at 75.9%. The percentage of students stating that the donor can donate his or her organs in accordance with the law while he or she is healthy and that organ donation can be made with the consent of the family after death was 67.9%. We found that the students' wish to donate their organs and their knowledge on where and how to make an organ donation and how to get official approval increased significantly as a result of this training in addition to the number of those who had no reservations regarding brain death.

We recommend providing nursing students regular training on organ donation with various training methods and conducting further studies on the subject.