A questionnaire based study on knowledge, awareness, and willingness towards corneal donation among the paramedical staff, public and students from Southern district of Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

Background: To determine the knowledge, awareness, and willingness towards eye donation among paramedical health care providers, public and students from schools and colleges around Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, Southern India.Methods: It was a cross-sectional, observational study conducted from November 2019 to January 2020. A structured questionnaire regarding knowledge (K), awareness (A), willingness (W) for eye donation was used to elicit responses in the age group of more than 16 years. Participants were paramedical health care providers working in tertiary eye care hospital, school and college students, and attenders accompanying patients (addressed as public). Responses were collected from 1803 participants and analyzed statistically.Results: Most of the participants had knowledge about the facts of eye donation, such as 96.8% knew that it could be donated after death, and 55% knew that eyes were enucleated within 6 hours after death. 56.2% admitted that lack of awareness is the reason for not donating eyes; 23.8% said that the family members are objecting to eye donation. Social media was proposed as the best source of information about eye donation. Subjects with an age of fewer than 30 years were willing to donate (the odds ratio was 1.90). However, they had less knowledge (p value=0.105) and awareness (p value=0.02) about eye donation than more than 30 years.Conclusions: Even though awareness and knowledge about eye donation and willingness to pledge eyes are there, self-conscience regarding the need for donor corneas to meet the requirement of corneal blindness plays a pivotal role.