Awareness of brain death, organ donation, and transplantation among medical students at single academic institute

OBJECTIVE: To assess the knowledge of the concept of brain death, attitude, and level of awareness towards organ donation and transplantation, among medical students and interns at the University of Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study via electronic questionnaire over period of 3 weeks to 2(nd) through 6(th) year medical students and interns at university of Jeddah. RESULTS: A response rate of 113 out of 151 (74.83%) was achieved. Among participants, 36% expressed uncertainty when questioned about the concept of brain death. 8.8% of the participants were against the idea of organ donation. 60% of those who refused to contemplate organ donation were unfamiliar with the brain death concept. No significant difference was seen regarding fears about cosmetic disfiguration between those familiar and unfamiliar with the concept of brain death. 60.2% of the study cohort would consider donating their organs to family members but only 29.2% of them had discussed the matter of organ donation and transplantation with them, while 44.2% had discussed the matter with their friends. Majority of medical students (71.7%) were interested in being organ donors. CONCLUSION: Knowledge of organ donation and transplantation were adequate. Matter accepting brain death and its implication still not clear for most of participants. We believe there is still room to improve. This could be achieved by integrating more education about different aspects of brain death and its implications through medical school years.