Assessment of knowledge about biobanking among healthcare students and their willingness to donate biospecimens

BMC Medical Ethics

Research Article

Mohammed H. Al-Qahtani¹  Abdelbaset Buhmeida¹  Mourad Assidi²  Adel Abuzenadah²  Lama Aldakhil³  Salina Y. Saddick⁴  Rawan Gadi⁵  Leena Merdad⁵  Jim Vaught⁶ 

[1]Center of Excellence in Genomic Medicine Research, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80216, 21589, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

[2]Center of Excellence in Genomic Medicine Research, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80216, 21589, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

[3]Center of Innovation in Personalized Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80216, 21589, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

[4]College of Public Health and Health Informatics, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, P.O. Box 22490, 11426, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

[5]Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

[6]Department of Dental Public Health, Faculty of Dentistry, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80209, 21589, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

[7]International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories, V5Z 1B3, Vancouver, BC, Canada

[8]Biopreservation and Biobanking, 20895, Kensington, MD, USA

关键词: Biobank;    Survey;    Willingness to donate;    Knowledge;    Biospecimens;    Medical students;    Precision medicine;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12910-017-0195-8

 received in 2016-12-03, accepted in 2017-04-27,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundBiobanks and biospecimen collections are becoming a primary means of delivering personalized diagnostics and tailoring individualized therapeutics. This shift towards precision medicine (PM) requires interactions among a variety of stakeholders, including the public, patients, healthcare providers, government, and donors. Very few studies have investigated the role of healthcare students in biobanking and biospecimen donations. The main aims of this study were (1) to evaluate the knowledge of senior healthcare students about biobanks and (2) to assess the students’ willingness to donate biospecimens and the factors influencing their attitudes.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among senior healthcare students at King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Saudi Arabia. The data were obtained using a self-administered questionnaire in English. In addition to the respondents’ biographical data section, the questionnaire assessed the respondents’ general knowledge about biobanking, the factors influencing their willingness to donate biospecimens to biobanks and their general attitudes towards biomedical research.ResultsA total of 597 senior healthcare students were included in the study. The general knowledge score was 3.2 (±1.6) out of 7. Only approximately 44% and 27% of students were aware of the terms “Human Genome Project” (HGP) and “biobank,” respectively. The majority of the students (89%) were willing to donate biospecimens to biobanks. Multiple factors were significantly associated with their willingness to donate, including their perceived general health (p < 0.001), past experience with both tissue testing (p < 0.04) and tissue donation (p < 0.001), biobanking knowledge score (p < 0.001) and biomedical research attitude score (p < 0.001). The main reasons for students’ willingness to donate were advancement of medical research and societal benefits, whereas misuse of biospecimens and confidentiality breaches were the main reasons for a reluctance to donate.ConclusionDespite their strong willingness to donate biospecimens, students exhibited a notable lack of knowledge about biobanking and the HGP. To expedite the transition towards PM, it is highly recommended to enhance healthcare curricula by including more educational and awareness programmes to familiarize students with OMICs technologies in addition to the scope of research and clinical applications.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017