A Questionnaire Based Study on Knowledge of Body Donation among Undergraduate Students

Aim & Objective: Anatomy set forth the fundamentals of human body in the course of all health care professionals. Cadaveric dissection is the principal way to understand the Human anatomy by the medical students. Donated bodies fulfill the need of cadavers in learning and teaching anatomy. Apart from the use of cadavers students must be aware of particulars regarding body donation. The aim of present study is to assess the knowledge of medical students on body donation. Methods: The research work is questionnaire based study carried out among 263 undergraduate medical students in Siddhartha medical college, Vijayawada. Structured questionnaire was prepared and distributed among the students. The data was collected, compiled and analyzed. Results: All the study members knew the term body donation. Majority of the students are unaware of the time limit to donate the body and the age limit of body donation. 57.03% knew who can donate body. 89.7% knew that the death certificate is mandatory during body donation process. 60.45% had clear idea of reasons for body rejection when donated. 96.57 % had clear idea about the uses of donated body. 59.31% of the students were willing to donate their body and 93.53% were interested in propagating the message of body donation. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the medical students should be aware of act, process and committee of body donation before they involve in the propagation about body donation among public. Keywords: Awareness, anatomy act, body donation, donation forms.

Willingness of Body donation

Cadavers are an incomparable resource for teaching labs in Anatomy. Without dissection of cadavers teaching and learning anatomy barely impossible; due to difficulty in correlating theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge. The objective of the study was to evaluate the awareness regarding the body donation after death. A survey was randomly distributed among older than 18 years, which included MBBS students, Dental students, and duty doctors in Bangalore. A total 380 participants filled up the questionnaire and consent letter providing information on demographic, educational, and religious aspects specific ones related to the willingness to donate own bodies. On the 380 participants, 140 (37%) were women and 240 (63%) were men, with ages from 18 to 45 years. Reasons to donate, majority 92.63% of the respondent expressed their positive attitude; 7.4% had negative attitudes. Main motives to donate were related to support teaching, research, and science, while the main reason for not to donate was associated with lack of sufficient information. The profile of potential donors was obtained from the analysis of all the respondents, and we also compared with different studies demonstrating that not only cultural, ethnic and religion aspects may determine the willingness to donate but also the level of public information and facilities to register as donors. KEY WORDS: Body donation, Cadavers, awareness, knowledge, future generations.

Study on Countermeasures to Improve College Students’ Willingness of Participation in Body Donation Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The cause of body donation is of great medical and social importance. How to get rid of the shackles of traditional ideas in order to accelerate the development of body donation has become a hot topic under the premise that the willingness of Chinese to participate in body donation is generally low or even unable to meet the needs of medical development. Having an intense sense of social responsibility and a developmental dialectical thinking, college students can view body donation more rationally. For this reason, college students are the ideal target group for the cause of body donation to break away from the shackles of traditional ideology and accelerate the development of itself. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is an essential theory in behavioral science, which is mainly embodied in the intuitive analysis of human needs and the targeted effect of action incentive. Under the circumstances of comprehensive understanding the needs of college students, this paper would deeply analysis the basis, significance and correspondence of their willingness of participating in body donation and discuss how to improve it around five sorts of needs based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.