Association between education about organ transplantation aimed at medical students and the acquisition of the organ donor card. A cross-sectional study.

Abstract

<p>Background. The transplantation group of the National<br />University of Colombia considers that education about<br />transplants is important to raise the donation rate in this country.</p><p><br />Objective. To find a statistical association between education<br />about transplantation aimed at medical students and the<br />number of students and their families bearing the organ donor card.</p><p><br />Materials and methods. Cross-sectional analytical study.<br />Two surveys were designed and sent to two different student<br />populations. The first group had taken the course “Human<br />Organ and Tissue Transplantation”, and the second group<br />was composed of students from the fifth semester of medical<br />education. The statistical test used was difference of proportions,<br />sample size of 50 people, statistical power of 80%, difference<br />in proportions 20%, alpha 0.05, p <0.05.</p><p><br />Results. The surveys were answered by 29 students from<br />first group and 74 students from second group. First question:<br />“Do you carry the organ donor card?”, p-value of 0.03 found.<br />Second question: “Do your family members carry the organ<br />donor card?”, p-value of 0.732 found. Affirmative answer to the<br />first question, p=0.10 and answer to second question, p=0.0005.</p><p>Conclusion. An association was found between education<br />about transplantation focused on medical students and bearing<br />the organ donor card and communicating their wishes to their<br />families. Likewise, an association between education and a<br />positive attitude toward donation was found in the families of<br />students that participated on the course “Human Organ and<br />Tissue Transplantation”.</p>