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May 20, 2025Keywords:
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Awareness and willingness regarding organ donation among undergraduate students Inahmadu Bello University Zaria
Abstract
Background: With the rising incidence of chronic disease conditions such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension, the world is experiencing a rapid surge in the incidence of end stage organ failures (ESOF) but organ transplantation remain the best hope for the patients, there has always been a long standing shortage of organ donors.
Aim: This study was conducted to assess undergraduate students’ awareness and willingness to donate an organ at a selected university in northern Nigeria.
Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional research design was adopted and disproportionate stratified sampling technique was used to select 400 undergraduate students from Faculty of life sciences and College of health sciences of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Nigeria where a structured questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection.
Results: It was found that, majority of the respondents (89.8%) had adequate level of awareness regarding organ donation.For living organ donation, 64% were willing to donate while they are still aliveout of which 91% were only willing to donate to their family members while for cadaveric organ donation, only 43.5% of the respondents were willing to donate organs after their death and majority of them (64.2%) can only donate to their family members. The study further discovered that the factors affecting undergraduate students’ willingness to donate organs were fear that their organs would be misused or abused as submitted by 72.5% of respondents, 49.8% identified the fact that there was some form of risk involved in donating an organ while 28% believed that their body should be kept intact after death.
Conclusion: The level of awareness regarding organ donation and willingness to donate an organ among undergraduate students were generally good but there is need for further intensive awareness campaigns targeting the myths surrounding organ donation to encourage students donate their organs.
