Eye donation: awareness and willingness among shopkeepers

Abstract

Background: Corneal blindness is one of the important causes of blindness in India that can be conventionally cured by corneal transplantation. The number of corneal transplants done is less than the actual requirement in India due to inadequate number of corneas collected. Therefore increasing awareness regarding eye donation and also willingness to pledge for the same is the today’s need. Hence current study was undertaken to assess the awareness regarding eye donation and the willingness to pledge the eye for donation amongst the shopkeepers in urban area of Pune city.Methods: Total 1014 shopkeepers above 15 years of age from field practice area of Urban Health Training Center of a private medical college, Pune were interviewed regarding awareness of eye donation and willingness to pledge eye for eye donation.Results: Out of total 1014 subjects, 752 (74.16%) were aware of eye donation amongst which males were maximum (75.13%) compared to females (24.87%). Awareness was more in the age group >40 years i.e. 47.87%. Willingness to pledge eyes for eye donation was 19.83%.Conclusions: Though the awareness regarding eye donation is high very few of them are ready to donate their eyes. Therefore more transfer of knowledge is needed to motivate people for eye donation which will be helpful in reducing the gap between the availability of corneas and actual requirement.

Knowledge, Attitude and Willingness for Eye Donation in General Population of Odisha inEastern India

“…In our study, 40.4 %( 192) knew the ideal time limit of eye donation was within 6 hours of death, which is in accordance with that of Patil et al(36.5%), Marathe et al(44.7%) Tiwari et al, (50%), [6,14,18] whereas it is low in comparison to the observations of Bhandarey et al (88%) , Goerge et al(79.5%) [15,16] .It is important for the general public to be aware of the time limit for eye donation after death,as eyes can not be utilised for optical purpose that are donated after 6 hours of death. (Table-II) 43.1%(195) of our participants thought that eye donation means removal of cornea which is similar to the study done by Ronaki et al(54.9%) .…”

“…(Table-II) 43.1%(195) of our participants thought that eye donation means removal of cornea which is similar to the study done by Ronaki et al(54.9%) . [9] 49.5 %( 224) knew that eye donation does not cause disfigurement as artificial prosthesis was given after collection of cornea which is similar to the study by Patil et al (39%), [6] Lawlor et al [19] and low in comparison to Ronaki et al (73.5%)and Bhandary et al(76.2%). [9,15] 43.1%(195)were aware that spectacle users,diabetics,hypertensives and post cataract surgery persons can donate their eyes, which is similar to the study of Ronaki et al(45.4%) .…”

“…The third part consists of questions regarding their attitude towards eye donation, their willingness and unwillingness to donate their eyes and the reason behind pledging for eye donation and not pledging for eye donation. 6 the participants willing to pledge were distributed with pledge forms to take signatures of their legal heirs. The ethical core committee of the hospital approved the study protocol.…”

“…Although strategies to prevent corneal blindness are likely to be more cost-effective, visual rehabilitation by corneal transplantation remains a major treatment option for restoring sight in those who already have corneal blindness [4]. Approximately 18.7 million people are blind in India and 1, 90,000 are blind from bilateral corneal disease [5] .Every year another 20,000 join the list [6]. for the x1 th five year plan under the national program for control of blindness and visual impairment (NPCB), the government of India envisages achieving the goal of elimination of avoidable blindness in the country by the year 2020 by modification of existing schemes and introduction of new ones [7,8] .Besides other issues being addressed, corneal blindness is also targeted and eye banking activities are beingup-scaled through financial assistance to develop eye banks and eye donation centres [7].…”

“…According to statistical data of NPCB, the current cornea procurement in India was 63256 corneas between 1st April 2016 to 31 st March 2017.Out of these, only 46% are utilized for sight restoration as the other 54% do not meet the standards for transplantation [5]. Based on our current ratio of suitable corneas, we would need 2, 77,000 donations per year to perform 1, 00,000 corneal transplants in a year in India [6]. Shortage of transplantable corneas is common and has been the subject of much attention though there is approximately a 20-fold increase in the donor eyes available now.…”