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Attitude towards organ donation in German medical students

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Abstract

Purpose

It is well known that personal decision making in respect to organ donation is highly dependent on the balance of knowledge, trust, and fear. We wanted to explore the attitude of German medical students towards organ donation and investigate the relationship between knowledge, trust, and fear in this special subgroup.

Methods

We conducted an online survey utilizing (1) the snowball effect of using Facebook groups and advertisement as well as (2) mailing lists of medical faculties in Germany for distribution.

Results

We surveyed 1370 medical students. 75.8 % (N = 988) of the participants stated to carry an organ donor card and allowed their organs to be donated. 1.8 % (N = 23) refused donation. 22.5 % (N = 293) did not carry an organ donor card. Analysis of the “decided” versus the “undecided” group revealed substantial differences regarding transplantation knowledge (mean knowledge score of 4.23 vs. 3.81; P < 0.001), trust in (mean trust score 4.11 vs. 3.39; P < 0.001), and fear of (mean fear score 1.63 vs. 2.22; P < 0.001) organ donation. 45.9 % of the undecided group (N = 134) opted for accessing additional information material. After reading the info material, 22.7 % (N = 29) stated their willingness to sign a donor card, whereas 76.6 % (N = 98) still could not reach a decision.

Conclusions

The willingness to potentially act as organ donor was related to the pre-existent knowledge, trust, and fear. Access to information material did promote the decision towards organ donation in a group of previously undecided medical students. This advocates initiating information campaigns even in population groups with strong medical background.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General, Visceral and Vascular Surgery, Experimental Transplantation Surgery, University Hospital Jena, Drackendorfer Str. 1, 07747, Jena, Germany

    Tobias Terbonssen & Uta Dahmen

  2. Department of General, Visceral and Vascular Surgery, University Hospital Jena, Erlanger Allee 101, 07747, Jena, Germany

    Utz Settmacher & Christine Wurst

  3. Klinikum Chemnitz gGmbH, Institute for pathology, Flemmingstrasse 2, 09116, Chemnitz, Germany

    Olaf Dirsch

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  1. Tobias Terbonssen
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  2. Utz Settmacher
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Correspondence to Uta Dahmen.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author contributions

- Study conception and design: Terbonssen T, Settmacher U, Wurst C, Dirsch O, Dahmen U

- Acquisition of data: Terbonssen T

- Analysis and interpretation of data: Terbonssen T

- Drafting of manuscript: Terbonssen T, Dahmen U

- Critical revision of manuscript: Settmacher U, Wurst C, Dirsch O, Dahmen U

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Terbonssen, T., Settmacher, U., Wurst, C. et al. Attitude towards organ donation in German medical students. Langenbecks Arch Surg 401, 1231–1239 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00423-016-1482-4

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