Comparison of Awareness of Eye Donation among Medical and Paramedical Students

Purpose: To compare the awareness of eye donation and willingness to donate eyes among medical and paramedical students. Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional study undertaken in April 2016, among 200 fi rst and second year medical students and 200 BSc nursing students of S Nijalingappa Medical Collage, Bagalkot. A semi-structured questionnaire was self-administered for collecting the necessary information after getting informed consent. The questionnaire was on demographic profi le, their awareness on eye donation, sources of information and willingness to donate eyes. Results: Awareness of organ donation noted was 100 % among medical students and 90% among paramedical students. Mass media such as TV, newspaper, poster, magazine were important sources of information for both groups.93% of medical students thought the ideal time duration to retrieve eyes is within 6 hours after death and 83% paramedical students gave the correct answer. Paramedical students thought communicable disease and blood group are barriers for eye donation. Willingness to donate eyes was similar in both the groups. Conclusion: The awareness of eye donation is better in medical students compared to paramedical students, but most of the students in both groups were inclined to pledge for eye donation. Research Article Comparison of Awareness of Eye Donation among Medical and Paramedical Students Jayashree MP1, Chaitra Pujar2, Vidya Rudrappa Gadag3*, Mallikarjun Salagar4 and Monalisha Pattnaik5 1Associate professor, Department of ophthalmology, RGUHS Bangalore, India 2Assistant professor, Department of ophthalmology S Nijalingappa Medical college bagalkot RGUHS Bangalore, India 3Post graduate student, Department of Ophthalmology, RGUHS Bangalore, India 4Professor and head of the department S Nijalingappa Medical college bagalkot RGUHS Bangalore 5Post graduate student, Ophthalmology, RGUHS Bangalore, India Dates: Received: 23 January, 2017; Accepted: 09 February, 2017; Published: 11 February, 2017 *Corresponding author: Vidya Rudrappa Gadag, Post graduate student, Department of Ophthalmology, RGUHS Bangalore, India, E-mail:


Introduction
Corneal diseases constitute a signifi cant cause of visual impairment and blindness in the developing world. It accounts for 4% of the estimated 2010 global blindness burden of 39 million1. The major causes of corneal blindness in the developing world include trachoma, corneal ulceration following xerophthalmia due to vitamin A defi ciency, ophthalmia neonatorum, use of harmful traditional medicines, onchocerciasis, leprosy, and ocular trauma [1][2][3][4].
There are 50 million blind in the world. India has one fourth of these unfortunates. Approximately 18.7 million people are blind in India [5], and 1,90,000 are blind from bilateral corneal disease. Every year another 20000 join the list. This problem is compounded by a low level of annual procurement of donor eyes which is 18000 annually as per a report of the National Programme for Control of Blindness and eye awareness [6]. Corneal transplant fi rst performed by Eduard Zirm in 1905 is the most widely practiced [7,8], and most successful [9], clinical allografting. The late Dr.Muthiah started the very fi rst eye bank in India and he performed the fi rst corneal transplant successfully in 1948. The practice of keratoplasty has witnessed phenomenal advances owing to innovations in instrumentation, surgical techniques, and perioperative care, resulting in improved outcomes and cost effectiveness10.Even after more than 50 years, patients waiting for corneal transplants constitute a considerable backlog which is growing. The need, therefore, is to educate the masses about eye donation in an effort to increase the procurement of corneas [10].
Well informed medical and paramedical students could be expected to infl uence the eye donation rates [8].

Materials and methods
The study is approved by institutional review board. This is a cross sectional study undertaken in April Chi square and paired t test were performed to compare the data. The p value less than 0.05 was taken as statistically signifi cant.

Proforma
NOTE: Please respond to this questionnaire on eye donation.
All the information will be kept strictly confi dential. It will be used for research purposes only. Please tick in the brackets,

Discussion
In the present study 100% of medical and 90% of paramedical aware about organ donation. 39% both medical and paramedical students were aware that eyes could be donated after death. In the study among south India population, 50.7% of the participants were aware of eye donation9. In study among hospital staff, 97% of them had good to excellent knowledge about transplantation of various human organs [11]. A large number of students, 138 (69%)of medical students and only 40 (20) of paramedical knew that the donated eyes is used for corneal grafting and 93% of medical and 83% of paramedical knew that ideal time for donation is within six hours of death [8]. A study on medical and nonmedical students also observed that 79.6% of medical students knew that eyes can be donated after death and 63.3 %knew that it should be done within six hours8.
Our study showed that 164 (82%) of medical and 162 (81%) of paramedical students were willing to donate eyes and 176 (88%) of medical and 174 (87%) paramedical agreed that there is shortage of eye donors. In the study among optometry students, 64.5% of the respondents were willing for eye donation [12]. Another study in the urban population observed that 73.8% were aware of aye donations and only 44.9% were willing to pledge their eyes [13].
Mandatory consent for donation expressed before the death of the donor should form the basis for eye donation ideally.
However, in case of unavailability of such consent, consent from adult family members of the deceased donor should be obtained for eye donation. In a study done on the responses of relatives of post-mortem donors, only 44.3% of relatives of such cases gave consent for donation after intensive counseling [14]. Mass media in the form of television, newspapers, magazines and posters were important sources of information on eye donation. Other studies also found publicity campaigns and media to be the major sources on this issue10 [13].
The awareness of eye donation is better in medical students compared to paramedical students, but most of the students in both groups were inclined to pledge for eye donation. There is need to create awareness about eye donation in paramedical students. The medical and paramedical students could be actively involved as volunteers in eye donation campaigns, where in after proper training in counseling techniques, they can act as counselors for eye donors.