Abstract

Abstract
Background: Organ donation and transplantation is a life-saving for many patients and can be affected by cultural beliefs, socio-economic levels of people and legalization in many countries. Exploring these issues play a crucial role in promoting concept of organ donation among nations especially in era of disparity between organs a viability and number of patients in waiting lists.
Aims
To evaluate knowledge, awareness and attitude of Iraqi people and the associated factors towards organ donation and transplant.
Subjects and Methods:
Study design: We conducted a cross-sectional study using a self -administrative structured questionnaires distributed to companions of patient during outpatient department visit.
This hospital -based study was performed at a teaching hospital from January 1St to June 1st 2022 ,
The socio-demographic data as well as knowledge and attitudes of participants on the organ donation and transplantation has been collected and analyzed.

Results: A total of 360 subjects participated in the study with overall response rate 95% (n= 341/360). The mean age of respondents (male n. 212 ,62.1% and female n. 129, 37.9%) was 37.8 ± 10.7(range 18-75 years) and 329 (96.5%) of them heard about organ donation.
A 271 (73.3%) of the studied group supported and encouraged organ donation, however, only 120 (36.5 %) of them exhibiting desire for donation.
59.8% (n.204) of the respondents were governmental employees and 311 (91.2%) of them had a university level of education or higher.
The male gender had a significantly higher desire (P =0.043) for donations than females. On other side desire for donation was significantly less (P=0.001) among governmental employees in comparison with other occupations

Conclusion: The study advocates to focusing on increase awareness of the general public by broad dissemination of clear messages in various mass media and by local religious and com-munity leaders on the benefit of organ donation will be decisive for improving willingness to donations.
Key words: Organ donation, knowledge, Attitudes,