Awareness and attitudes towards organ donation and transplantation among the Asian population - A preliminary survey in Luton, UK

Currently the demand for transplant organs, particularly kidneys, far outst rips the supply in the UK. This problem is particularly severe for the Asia n population, which has been shown to have a disproportionately large repre sentation on kidney-transplant waiting lists in some regions of the UK. The situation is clear: there is an urgent need to address the number of Asian s requiring a kidney transplant, otherwise the human and economic costs wil l be very high. An exploratory qualitative study was therefore undertaken w ith the aim of assessing current awareness of organ donation and transplant ation and to explore attitudes towards these issues in a cross section of t he Asian population in Luton. It was found that nearly half of the responde nts in this survey did not know what a donor card was used for, and approxi mately half of these had never seen one; only 6 of the 64 people interviewe d had heard of the National Donor Register. Of the three people who carried a donor card, two had an immediate family member who had received a transp lant. This suggests that media campaigns aimed at attracting donors from th e Asian population have had limited success thus far. It appears that the v ast majority of the Asian population is at the initial stage of the process of making a decision about donating their organs, that of simply knowing t hat transplantation takes place. Very little debate of pertinent issues see ms to have taken place, which is essential for reaching a decision on wheth er or not to donate an organ. The study should be seen as exploratory but i s nonetheless an important initial step towards the establishment of a grea ter knowledge and understanding of the issues affecting the low donation ra te in the Asian population.