KUMJ | VOL. 19 | NO. 1 | ISSUE 73 | JAN.-MARCH, 2021
Knowledge and Attitude on Eye Donation among Undergraduate Medical Students of Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, Nepal
Kaiti R, Dhungel P, Pradhan A, Chaudhry M
Abstract: Background
Corneal blindness accounts for a significant proportion of avoidable visual impairment
in developing countries. Eye donation is voluntary and awareness in undergraduate
medical students being a future practitioner in any field are expected to be linked to
patients during death in hospitals.
Objective
To assess the awareness of medical students on eye donation at Kathmandu
University School of Medical Sciences (KUSMS).
Method
This was a cross-sectional study conducted among undergraduate medical students
of KUSMS. Students’ responses were recorded using a predesigned, pretested, semistructured
questionnaire
inquiring
knowledge
and
attitude
of
eye
donation,
sources
of
information,
their
willingness
to
donate
eyes
as
well
as
the
reasons
for
donating/
not
donating
eyes.
Result
Less than half of the medical students (45.6%) were aware of eye donation only after
death. Newspapers (72.2%) were the major source of information. The final year
medical students were more aware (Average knowledge score = 11.56 ± 2.05) than
their juniors. 80.7% of the students were willing to donate their eyes. The adjudged
reasons for willingness to donate were that eye donation is a noble work and pleasure
in helping a blind person while the reasons for unwillingness to donate were lack of
awareness followed by family objection to eye donation.
Conclusion
Future medical practitioners possessed satisfactory knowledge about eye donation.
Educating this cadre of human resources to sensitize them towards the need for
eye donation would be a crucial step towards reducing the global burden of corneal
blindness.
Keyword : Attitude, Eye donation, Knowledge, Medical students, Transplantation
