KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE TOWARDS CORNEAL DONATION AMONG RELIGIOUS LEADERS IN ADDIS ABABA: ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Abstract Background: Corneal blindness is one of the major public problems as a second cause blindness following cataract of the total blindness of the 45miliion the 6-8million is due to corneal blindness. The burden in our country shows that is also the second leading cause of blindness to alleviate the problem prevention is the most important measure to be taken but for the existing problem corneal transplant is recommended after assessing their eligibility. In Ethiopia the eye hank is established 14 yrs back and 130- 150 corneas are harvested and used every year there is a gap in the demand of cornea and more pledged cornea is required .One of the hesitation for individuals unwillingness is their body intactness after passing away and these issue has to be addressed by religious leaders and first knowing their stand is important to give recommendation and awareness program. Objective: to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of corneal donation among religious leaders in Addis Ababa Methods: Community based cross-sectional study on religious leaders in Addis Ababa taking a sample size of 351 and using multistage stratified random sampling with proportional allocation the chosen participants were interviewed . The data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 20 Result: the study comprised of 324 religious leaders with a median age of 44yrs.The proportion of overall level of good knowledge and Favorable attitude and practice toward eye donation was 48.5%,38.9% and 0.3% respectively. Conclusion: Even though participants were aware but had poor knowledge attitude and practice and its mandatory to educate them with a detailed knowledge on corneal donation by preparing seminars and making it interactive so that they can ask questions and bring individuals for whom corneal transplant was done to motivate them .