Tessmer Chiara Scaglioni, da Silva André Rodrigues, Barcellos Franklin Correa, Araujo Cora Luiza, da Costa Juvenal Dias, Böhlke Maristela
Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil.
Prog Transplant. 2007 Mar;17(1):63-7. doi: 10.1177/152692480701700110.
Although the term brain death has been clinically and legally accepted as a death criterion, few data are published about public attitudes and beliefs concerning this topic.
To examine public understanding of brain death and how the term brain death affects decisions about organ donation.
Population-based cross-sectional study, with individuals aged 20 years or older in the urban area of Pelotas, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The instrument used was a structured questionnaire, completed in individual interviews. chi2 and t test were used in the univariate and logistic regression in multivariate analysis.
Of 3159 participants, 80.1% would authorize organ donation from a relative who had previously declared a willingness to do so. However, when the words "brain death" were used as death, only 63% would authorize organ donation. When the subject had not been discussed, only a third of the participants would authorize the donation of a relative's organs.
When the term death was substituted with brain death, the willingness to donate decreased by 20%, suggesting that some individuals do not understand or accept the term brain death. Increasing comprehension about the concept of brain death and adopting educational strategies are essential to obtain higher rates of organ donation in developing countries.
尽管脑死亡这一术语已在临床和法律上被接受为死亡标准，但关于公众对该主题的态度和信念的公开数据却很少。
研究公众对脑死亡的理解以及脑死亡这一术语如何影响器官捐赠决策。
基于人群的横断面研究，研究对象为巴西南里奥格兰德州佩洛塔斯市区20岁及以上的个体。使用的工具是一份结构化问卷，通过个人访谈完成。单变量分析采用卡方检验和t检验，多变量分析采用逻辑回归。
在3159名参与者中，80.1%的人会授权从之前表示愿意捐赠器官的亲属身上摘取器官。然而，当使用“脑死亡”作为死亡表述时，只有63%的人会授权器官捐赠。当未讨论该主题时，只有三分之一的参与者会授权捐赠亲属的器官。
当用“脑死亡”取代“死亡”一词时，捐赠意愿下降了20%，这表明一些人不理解或不接受脑死亡这一术语。提高对脑死亡概念的理解并采取教育策略对于在发展中国家获得更高的器官捐赠率至关重要。
