Transplantation Technologies & Research

Introduction: Organ donation and transplantation programs are affected by factors impacting donation decisions of individuals. These factors have been widely researched world over. However, few researches have studied the organ donation system level challenges that jeopardize the system even when prospective donors are available. It is important to understand these challenges and find appropriate resolutions for them. This qualitative study was conducted to understand the challenges and resolutions in the organ donation and transplant system of Qatar.
Methodology: Eight focus group discussions were carried out with homogenous groups of health care workers working in the field of organ donation or organ transplantation in Qatar. After consenting, they were asked open ended questions by an unbiased moderator. Each session lasted for 60-90 min and ended with session summary and participant feedback. The question workbooks were prepared after extensive review of literature and discussion with non-participating stake holders of the organ donation and transplant program in Qatar. Discussions were audio recorded, transcribed and later coded and analyzed on Nvivo software. COREQ checklist was used while reporting the results of this study.
Results: Underutilization of potential donors, organ donation campaign, brain dead donors, family consenting, living donation, infrastructure, staff training, allocation and recruitment were main system level challenges to resolve to ensure maximum utilization of potential donors and donated organs.
Conclusion: Inclusion of multidisciplinary teams during organ transplant, increased representation from departments doing transplants in transplant committee, minimizing wastage of available organs, streamlining the process of brain dead identification, declaration and maintenance of deceased organ, centralized facility for living donor work up and improved infrastructural facility were advocated to improve utilization of donated organs to resolve system level challenges. Improvement in after care and compliance in transplanted patients, registering higher number of donors and increasing family consent by ensuring communication of donation decision to family are the need of the hour.

Background: This study aimed to explore the attitudes and knowledge of university students in Gaza to organ donation.
Methods: A structured questionnaire was used to collect data including socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge level and attitudes of participants toward organ donation and factors that affect personal beliefs of the participants on donation. The questionnaire was distributed using the convenience method to 489 (179 males, 310 females) students at the Islamic University of Gaza. The data were analyzed in a descriptive fashion using SPSS program.
Results: The study showed that 97.5% of participants were acquainted with the term “organ donation”. Those participants were eligible and were asked to complete the questionnaire. Less than half of participants chose multimedia as the main source of information regarding organ donation and more than half of respondents (56%) said that, “saving lives” was the most important reason for organ donation. One fifth of participants (22%) reported that they completely reject donating any of their organs during their lifetimes, whereas more than one fourth of them (27%) reported that they refuse organ donation even after death. (54%) of students denied any knowledge about local or international legislation regulating organ donation.
Conclusion: The results of the study confirm the presence of good level of knowledge regarding organ donation among participants, which was reflected in their positive attitudes towards organ donation. However, one of the main concerns to promote organ donation was the fear of surgery and its complications. Additionally, legislative, educational and health agencies are recommended to exert more efforts through the media and public campaigns tackling misconcepts and lack of information regarding organ donation. Finally, ministry of health needs to take steps to alleviate fears and mistrust from the public towards the health care system.