Dr.ANITHA S. MAIYA
Aim:Corneal blindness occurs due to loss of transparency of cornea. Corneal transplantation is a major treatment option for restoring sight.Current cornea procurement rate in India is 22,000/yr while annual requirement of corneas is 100,000/yr.To increase procurement, creating awareness about eye donation and soliciting at the time of death is important.Study was conducted to assess the awareness about eye donation in undergraduate medical students and willingness to donate.
Methods:Cross sectional study on all 3rd year undergraduate medical students to assess their awareness using structured questionnaire.
Results: Among 81 students,98.8% were aware about eye donation and 6hrs time for procuring .83.9% were willing to donate ,despite 90.1% being aware of acute shortage of donor cornea.
Conclusions:Though medical students are better informed about eye donation and its significance , their knowledge seems incomplete or insufficient to tackle the huge deficiency of donor cornea in India
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