Determination of knowledge-opinion and attitudes of adolescents about organ donation

Determination of knowledge-opinion and attitudes of adolescents about Organ Donation This study was carried out as a descriptive research in order to determine the knowledge-opinion and attitudes of the adolescents about organ donation. The population of the study has consisted of 168 students in Private İlke Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School and 224 students in Private Anlam Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School. The sample has been completed with 320 volunteer adolescents. In this study, personal information form and Organ Donation Attitude Scale developed in line with the literature were used as data collection tool in order to determine the descriptive characteristics of adolescents. In the data evaluation, Mann Whitney U was used to examine the difference between categorical variables with two groups, but if the number of group was more than two, Kruskal Wallis test was used. Spearman correlation coefficient was used to analyze the relationship between two numerical variables but Cronbach's Alpha for scale reliability. In the study, 51.8% and 48.2% of the students were female and male respectively. It was determined that 50.5% of the students did not want to donate their organs and 67.5% of the organs they are unwilling to donate were "eyes". The mean scores of the sub-dimensions of the organ donation attitude scale were found that donorship and moral values/beliefs were 42.85±18.75, medical neglect fear was 36.85±11.73 and bodily injury fear was 36.98±12.65. According to this study, adolescents lack knowledge of organ donation although they have high sensitivity about it. Accordingly, it may be advisable for nurses to come together with non-governmental organizations and promote the sensitivity studies on organ donation in childhood and adolescence period. Keywords: organ donation, adolescent, attitude, transplantation, nursing