[Knowledge and attitudes toward organ donation among health professionals in a third level hospital].

OBJECTIVE: The Spanish model is the model adopted by many countries to increase their donation rate, being the implication of the healthcare professionals one of the keys to this success. The attitude of these before the donation is crucial for the hour of influence on the population. Organ transplantation has been established as an effective treatment that has been improving over the years. The objective was to determine the knowledge and attitudes of health professionals before the donation of organs.

METHODS: Cross-sectional descriptive study. An ad hoc questionnaire was conducted and distributed among the health professionals (medical staff, nurses and nursing assistants) of a tertiary hospital during February 2015. A total of 615 potential participants were estimated in the different areas of the hospital. A total of 342 completed questionnaires were collected (55%). The statistical analysis with SPSS® Statistics for Windows. Version 20.0. A level of significance P lower than 0.05 was used in all the analyses.

RESULTS: The average age of the respondents was 43.34 (SD = 10.37) years, being 86.6% women and 60% nurses. 35.5% showed good knowledge about the donation process, being higher in men (51.1% Vs 33.1%, p lower than 0.05), medical personnel (55% vs 34.3% vs 31.9%). %; p lower than 0.05) and lower in those services with a direct relationship with the donation process (36.8% vs 31.9%, p lower than 0.05). 71% of the professionals expressed their willingness to donate their organs, with special sensitivity towards donation those services in direct relation with the donation program (82.2% vs 65.9%, OR: 1.24, p lower than 0.001 ). 50% of the professionals would donate the organs of a family member; the medical group had the highest percentage (70% vs 50.7% vs 40.4%, OR: 3.8, p lower than 0.05). 74.5% knew some Spanish legal document about donation and transplants.

CONCLUSIONS: Health professionals as a whole have a low level of knowledge; but a good attitude towards donation.