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Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students

BACKGROUND: Organ transplantation represents the most effective and acceptable therapy for end-stage organ failure. However, its frequent practice often leads to a shortage of organs worldwide. To solve this dilemma, some countries, such as Portugal, have switched from an opt-in to an opt-out system...

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Autores principales: da Silva Clemente Pinho, Rita, Nogueira da Costa Santos, Cristina Maria, Resende Figueiredo Duarte, Ivone Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8520635/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34656108
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-021-00707-2
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author da Silva Clemente Pinho, Rita
Nogueira da Costa Santos, Cristina Maria
Resende Figueiredo Duarte, Ivone Maria
author_facet da Silva Clemente Pinho, Rita
Nogueira da Costa Santos, Cristina Maria
Resende Figueiredo Duarte, Ivone Maria
author_sort da Silva Clemente Pinho, Rita
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Organ transplantation represents the most effective and acceptable therapy for end-stage organ failure. However, its frequent practice often leads to a shortage of organs worldwide. To solve this dilemma, some countries, such as Portugal, have switched from an opt-in to an opt-out system, which has raised concerns about respect for individual autonomy. We aimed to evaluate whether young university students are aware of this opt-out system so that they can make informed, autonomous and conscious decisions, as well as to identify the factors that determine a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation. METHODS: An observational, cross-sectional study was developed and a questionnaire was administered to first-year students from six faculties of the University of Porto. RESULTS: Of the 841 participants, 60% were unaware that Portugal had adopted an opt-out system. Among the informed individuals, their main sources of information included social media, internet, and family. Furthermore, only 48% of all participants agreed with the current opt-out system. Female sex (p = 0.049; OR 1.393), knowledge of the law (p < 0.001; OR 4.749) and family being the primary source of information (p < 0.001; OR 2.855) were independent factors associated with a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation law. CONCLUSIONS: There is a significant lack of knowledge among young university students regarding the presumed post-mortem organ donation law and how it works. Female sex, having family as a primary source of information and being aware of the presumed post-mortem organ donation law are the strongest independent factors that determine a positive attitude toward the opt-out system.
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spelling pubmed-85206352021-10-20 Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students da Silva Clemente Pinho, Rita Nogueira da Costa Santos, Cristina Maria Resende Figueiredo Duarte, Ivone Maria BMC Med Ethics Research Article BACKGROUND: Organ transplantation represents the most effective and acceptable therapy for end-stage organ failure. However, its frequent practice often leads to a shortage of organs worldwide. To solve this dilemma, some countries, such as Portugal, have switched from an opt-in to an opt-out system, which has raised concerns about respect for individual autonomy. We aimed to evaluate whether young university students are aware of this opt-out system so that they can make informed, autonomous and conscious decisions, as well as to identify the factors that determine a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation. METHODS: An observational, cross-sectional study was developed and a questionnaire was administered to first-year students from six faculties of the University of Porto. RESULTS: Of the 841 participants, 60% were unaware that Portugal had adopted an opt-out system. Among the informed individuals, their main sources of information included social media, internet, and family. Furthermore, only 48% of all participants agreed with the current opt-out system. Female sex (p = 0.049; OR 1.393), knowledge of the law (p < 0.001; OR 4.749) and family being the primary source of information (p < 0.001; OR 2.855) were independent factors associated with a positive attitude toward post-mortem organ donation law. CONCLUSIONS: There is a significant lack of knowledge among young university students regarding the presumed post-mortem organ donation law and how it works. Female sex, having family as a primary source of information and being aware of the presumed post-mortem organ donation law are the strongest independent factors that determine a positive attitude toward the opt-out system. BioMed Central 2021-10-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8520635/ /pubmed/34656108 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-021-00707-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
da Silva Clemente Pinho, Rita
Nogueira da Costa Santos, Cristina Maria
Resende Figueiredo Duarte, Ivone Maria
Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students
title Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students
title_full Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students
title_fullStr Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students
title_full_unstemmed Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students
title_short Presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students
title_sort presumed post-mortem donors: the degree of information among university students
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8520635/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34656108
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12910-021-00707-2
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