Knowledge, Attitude and Willingness for Eye Donation in General Population of Odisha inEastern India

Aim: To assess the knowledge,attitude and willingness of general population towards eye donation which includes patients and their attendants attending the outpatient department of a tertiary care medical college hospital of southern Orissa, Eastern India. Materials and methods: 452 participants were administered a pretested semi-structured questionnaire. Chisquare test was used to determine the factors associated with willingness towards eye donation. Data was analysed using Graphpad prism version 7.0 Results: In this study 247(54.6%) participants were willing to pledge for eye donation ,there was significant association of willingness to donate eyes among males159 (64.1%) , among participants below 40 years of age175 (75.2%),participants with higher education status146 (82.9%) and urban population147 (70.6%) .Perceived reasons among 205 (45.3%) who were not willing to pledge were,137(66.8%) need more information regarding eye donation,52(25.3%) thought family may not allow for eye donation and 16(7.8%) participants did not want to pledge due to religious disbelief.Media played a major role in creating awareness for eye donation. Conclusion:Multipronged innovative strategies should be adopted to increase the awareness regarding eye donation in less educated and rural population.