- Oral presentation
- Open access
- Published:
Knowledge and attitude of medical students on brain death and organ donation
International Journal of Emergency Medicine volume 7, Article number: O5 (2014)
Objective
To assess the knowledge, attitudes of medical students regarding brain death and organ donation from brain dead.
Methods
The study was conducted among the final year medical students of JIPMER, Puducherry using a 22-item questionnaire during the academic year 2013.
Results
A total of 90 questionnaires were assessed. Based on the students’ response the following opinions were noted. 25% of students believed brain death is equal to human death. 91% students responded that there is no treatment for brain dead patients. 62% of students accepted the concept of brain death. Religious and social reasons were the commonest reason for non-acceptance of brain death among the students. 97% of students believe that organ donation can save a life. 93% of students think that there is difference between organ transplantation from brain dead and cadaver. In students’ opinion, mutilation of the body was found to be the main reason for not accepting organ removal from brain dead patients.
Conclusion
Religious and social factors were the major hindering factors for acceptance of brain death and organ donation. Knowledge of brain death and organ donation was lacking among medical students.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Palanivelu, E.T., Sundaramurthi, S., Dasarathan, S. et al. Knowledge and attitude of medical students on brain death and organ donation. Int J Emerg Med 7 (Suppl 1), O5 (2014). https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/1865-1380-7-S1-O5
Published:
DOI: https://doiorg.publicaciones.saludcastillayleon.es/10.1186/1865-1380-7-S1-O5