Organ Procurement, Donation, and Transplant Awareness in an Urban Eastern European Region: A General Population Survey

Background: Despite significant improvements in Romania's transplantation system, actual donor numbers have paradoxical-ly fallen, contrary to the European trend. With a donation rate of 3.44 donors per million inhabitants, Romania ranks near the bottom of European countries. This study aimed to identify several predictors of a positive atti-tude toward organ donation in the Romanian population that could aid in reshaping public policies to improve donation and transplantation rates.Material/Methods: The study included a representative Iasi population. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire focused on revealing attitudes toward organ donation, importance of consent, willingness to donate a family mem-ber's organs, and role of medical staff in the donation decision. A perception score was calculated as a meth-odological approach to validate attitudes toward organ donation.Results: Of all respondents, 55% agreed to donate their organs if declared brain-dead, while 20% opposed this idea; 72.7% considered consent necessary; 70% believed that consent must belong to the family when it comes to brain-dead organ donors; and 44.5% supported the idea of financial compensation. Higher monthly income was correlated with a positive attitude toward organ donation.Conclusions: Even though the study population had a positive attitude toward organ donation, the willingness to donate was lower than in other European countries and did not translate into actual donations. The necessity of in-formed consent, lack of knowledge on the topic, bureaucratic aspects, and openness to financial compensa-tion could explain the current situation of the Romanian transplantation system.