Awareness regarding eye donation among stakeholders in Srikakulam district in South India

BMC Ophthalmology

Research Article

Sethu Sheeladevi¹  Venkata Ramana Ronanki¹  Brinda P Ramachandran²  Isabelle Jalbert³ 

[1] International Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye Care, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, India;University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;Ramayamma International Eye Bank, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India;University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;

关键词: Eye donation;    Corneal blindness;    Community stakeholders;    Willingness to donate;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2415-14-25

 received in 2013-04-05, accepted in 2014-02-28,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThere is a huge need for the availability of transplantable donor corneas worldwide to reduce the burden of corneal blindness due to corneal opacity. Voluntary eye donation depends on the awareness levels of various stakeholders in the community. This study aimed to assess the awareness level regarding eye donation among various stakeholders in Srikakulam district in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India.Methods355 subjects were selected from the district using multi stage random sampling. A pre tested semi structured questionnaire was used to collect information regarding each individual’s awareness, knowledge, and perception regarding eye donation. Each response was scored individually and a total score was calculated. Univariate and multivariate regression analysis was used to determine the factors associated with willingness towards eye donation and increased awareness levels.ResultsOf the 355 subjects interviewed, 192 (54%) were male and 163 (46%) were female. The mean age of the stakeholders was 35.9 years (SD ±16.1) and all the study subjects were literate. Ninety-three percent of subjects were aware of the concept of eye donation. Knowledge levels were similar among the teaching community and persons engaged in social service, but lower among students (p < 0.05). Among the stakeholders, there was considerable ambiguity regarding whether persons currently wearing spectacles or suffering from a chronic illnesses could donate their eyes. Older age group (p < 0.001), female gender (p < 0.001) and education (p < 0.001) were associated with increased knowledge levels. 82% of the subjects were willing to donate their eyes and this was unaffected by gender or geographical location (rural vs urban).ConclusionsAwareness levels and willingness to donate eyes are high among the stakeholders in Srikakulam district in India. The services of stakeholders could be utilized, in conjunction with other community based eye donation counselors, to promote awareness regarding eye donation among the general population.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Ronanki et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.