Public awareness and willingness to participate in organ donation in Ghana

Background: Organ donation restores life and significantly enhances the recipient’s quality of life. Assessing awareness, knowledge, and willingness to donate an organ will therefore foster the development of sensitization campaigns for organ donation and the establishment of organ banking in Ghana. Study Aim: This study aimed to examine the level of public awareness, knowledge, attitude, and willingness of organ donation in Ghana. Methods: This was a hospital-based descriptive analytical cross-sectional survey conducted among hospital-attending adults in four major teaching hospitals in Ghana. Data on socio-demographic characteristics, awareness, knowledge, and willingness to donate organs were collected using structured questionnaires. Responses were analyzed with Stata 16.1. Associations between demographic factors and outcomes were examined using Chi-square tests. Predictors of awareness, knowledge, and willingness were assessed with binary logistic regression. Results: A total of 1,058 participants were surveyed, of which the majority were females (595, 56.2%). The mean age of participants was 50.6 ± 18.0 years, with an age range of 18–97 years. Almost half (517, 48.9%) were aware of organ donation, 497 (47.0%) had adequate knowledge about organ donation, and 515 (48.7%) indicated their willingness to donate an organ respectively, quoting reasons such as helping others, saving lives, and contribution to medical advancement. Others were not willing to donate due to inadequate knowledge about organ donation in general, religious and cultural factors. In a univariate analyses, age, education, occupation, and residence were each significantly associated with awareness, knowledge, and willingness to donate an organ (p < 0.05). Multivariate analysis showed lower age and higher education as independent positive predictors of awareness, knowledge, and willingness to donate an organ (p < 0.05), whereas lower education consistently corresponded to greatly reduced odds of awareness, knowledge, and willingness. Conclusion: The levels of awareness, knowledge, and willingness to donate an organ were low among these participants. Age, education, occupation, and residence were predictors of organ donation awareness, knowledge and willingness. This finding provides important lessons about the need for scalable interventions focused on increasing public awareness, improving knowledge, and enhancing willingness to donate through targeted health campaigns.