Exploring the Knowledge Levels, Attitudes and Beliefs of Patients’ Relatives Towards Organ Donation in the Intensive Care Units of Two Majors Hospitals in Trinidad

Purpose: To ascertain the Knowledge levels, Attitudes and Beliefs towards Organ Donation by Relatives of Patients in the Intensive Care Unit at two Tertiary Care Hospitals in Trinidad.

Methods: A quantitative descriptive study in which the researchers’-designed and pretested self-administered questionnaire was used on a sample of 133 randomly selected patients’ relatives from two main intensive care hospitals units of Trinidad. The respondents were requested to give their consent after necessary ethical approval was received. Data entry was done manually but the analysis was done with the SPSS version 12 programme. Results were presented as frequencies.

Results: Demographic characteristics indicate that most were females, of African ethnicity, and Christianity as their main religion. The majority of participants had high level of knowledge (69.2%) while 57.9% of them had unfavourable attitude towards organ donation. Most (86.5%) had positive belief. It also showed that the respondents’ knowledge towards organ donation is significantly related to their age and religion, (P≤, 0.05) while their attitudes are significantly related to their gender and ethnicity (p≤0.05). Their belief is only significantly associated with their marital status.

Discussion: The findings of the study were compared with previous studies and the researchers showed how the relevant theories that guided the study were used to explain the findings.

Conclusion: Based on the findings, the researchers made a number of recommendations particularly related to public education in attempt to address the attitudes of the public related to organ donation in Trinidad and Tobago.