European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

AWARENESS AND STIGMA REGARDING EYE DONATION AMONG COMMUNITY PEOPLE LIVING IN BUTWAL-6, LAXMINAGAR, NEPAL, 2016

*Dahal Punam and Gautam Pratiksha

ABSTRACT

The joy of sight restoration is incomparable with anything in the world. It is like giving life back to the dead. Eye donation provides people who are blind with an opportunity to regain their vision through corneal transplantation. We can light life of blind people by donating eyes. But people are skeptical in doing this because of social stigma and misconceptions. Moreover there is lack of awareness about eye donation among general population so practice of eye donation is also lacking. Objective: To determine the awareness and stigma regarding eye donation among community people. Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive design has been deployed in Laxminagar community of Butwal Municipality among 106 participants who were selected by multistage probability sampling technique. The participants were asked semi structured questionnaire for socio demographic information, for testing awareness level and determining stigma regarding eye donation. Validity and Reliability was maintained by consulting with experts and pre-testing the questionnaire in 10% of sample size with similar characteristics in different setting. Data was checked for completeness and accuracy and collected data was entered in SPSS Software version 20. Descriptive statistics such as number and percentage were used to describe demographic data and for analysis of the level of awareness and stigma related to eye donation, inferential statistics were used. Results: The study revealed that majority (49.1%) of the participants were of age group between 30-49 years, majority were female (54.7%) and majority of the people (94.3%) were literate. The study showed that although 76.40% heard that eyes can be donated, only 42.50% had high level of awareness regarding eye donation. Media comprises the major source of information. in front of 49.1 willingness to donate eyes while the reasons for not donating eyes were fear of deformity (15.1%), have an eye problem (12.3%), don’t think it will be useful (17.0%) and other reasons (6.6%). There were many social stigmas regarding eye donation like: may born blind in next birth (9.4%), relatives of donor get money for eye donation (0.9%), results in delay in funeral arrangement (19.8%), retrieving personnel take everything along with eye (21.7%), physician will not impart adequate care (12.3%) if one has pledged. Conclusion: In this study though the literacy rate among the people was high, only 42.50% had high level of awareness. Moreover it found many people had misconception and stigma regarding eye donation.

Keywords: Eye Donation, Awareness, Stigma, Community, Misconception.