Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding organ donation among adult Population of an Urban field practice area of a medical college in Durgapur, West Bengal, India

Background: Organ donation is either when a person allows healthy transplantable organs/tissues to be removed, after death, or when the donor is alive and transplanted into other persons. Common transplantations include eyes, kidneys, liver, heart, skin, and bone marrow. The present study was conducted to understand the knowledge, attitude, and practice pattern of organ donation among the participants and to find out the association between the knowledge of organ donation with selected variables of interest. Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional study conducted among adult participants of an urban area of Durgapur from October 18, 2016, to November 5, 2016. A predesigned and pretested pro forma was used for data collection. Results: About 73.3% of the participants had heard about organ donation. Majority of the participants were female, aged 31-40 years, illiterate, and with a monthly income less than Rs. 5000/month. Eye was the most common donatable organ identified by the participants. Majority of the participants were unaware about the existing law in India about organ donation. Not a single participant had donated any organ, but 6% of them had signed form for cadaveric donation. Participants those who have educational status above high school had better knowledge compared to those who have lesser educational qualification (P = 0.001). Similarly, participants with monthly family income >= 10,000 also had better knowledge compared to other groups (P = 0.029), and this relation was statistically significant. Conclusion: Awareness about organ donation is not satisfactory, but the community had a positive attitude toward organ donation.