University hospital doctors: what are their beliefs about organ donation?

INTRODUCTION

Organ and human tissue donation is not well developed in Morocco. This is due in part to the refusal of families, but also to a lack of awareness. We conducted a survey of a representative sample of doctors more exposed to the donation process to assess their knowledge and attitudes toward organ donation and their training needs.

METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study of physicians in Marrakech University Hospital. An anonymous questionnaire adapted to Moroccan context, assessing the knowledge, opinions, attitudes, and needs regarding organ donation was given to doctors.

RESULTS

Among 130 distributed questionnaires, we collected 115 completely answered surveys. Respondees were as follows: 60.8% were females, 87 were residents and 28 interns, 80% were aged from 25 to 34 years, and 60% had practiced their profession for 1 to 5 years. Results showed that 28% don't know that tissue and organ donation from a cadaver is authorized in Morocco, 6% are aware of the organs and tissues that can be taken, 76% know the definition of brain death, 35% don't believe in this concept, 88% were favorable for the removal of organs and tissue of deceased persons, 10% ignore that Islam allows organ donation, 62% will give their organs and tissues after death, 25% refuse organ donation of a parent, and 30% refuse it of their children after death.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings show that there is discordance between knowledge and attitudes of doctors in our hospital toward organ donation. The promotion of organ donation requires good training of our teams to sensitize the population.