Corneal transplant awareness in medical students by grade and the effect of subject-specific education on this awareness level.

Abstract

Purpose: Corneal transplantation is the most commonly performed transplant surgery. Medical students, doctors of the future, will educate the public about organ transplantation and raise public awareness on this issue. The first aim of this study is to evaluate the initial awareness of medical students about corneal transplantation, then to provide training to these students and finally to evaluate the change in their knowledge on this subject.

Method: 310 medical students from Ege University were asked to participate in a 20-question survey. Later, they were given education by a corneal transplant specialist. Immediately after the lessons, the survey was reapplied.

Results: The number of students who said they had knowledge about corneal transplantation before the training was 25.5% (n = 79). The knowledge level of 1st grades was lower than the 5th and 6th grades. Final-test scores were significantly higher than pre-test scores in each year group (p < 0.001). The final-test scores were significantly higher than the pre-test scores in both groups, who said they had knowledge about corneal transplantation and who said they did not.

Conclusion: Physicians' attitudes toward organ transplantation play a crucial role in influencing the public interest in organ donation. In addition, the physicians' level of knowledge about organ and tissue transplantation is the main determinant of their attitudes via answering the questions and clarifying the worries of the society. This article showed the level of knowledge about corneal transplantation does not increase linearly as the medical school year progresses. In addition, regardless of the initial level of knowledge, the education on corneal transplantation will increase the knowledge level of every student from the 1st grade to the 6th grade.