A study to assess willingness and determinants for cadaveric organ donation among family members of deceased individuals autopsied at a tertiary care institute of North India

<h2>Abstract</h2><h3>Objective</h3> The study aimed to assess the willingness for organ donation among the family members of deceased individuals whose bodies were brought for postmortem examination and the sociodemographic factors associated with it at a tertiary care institute in North India. <h3>Methods</h3> A prospective observational study was conducted at the Department of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. All medico-legal autopsy cases eligible for organ donation were included in the study, while cases with known contraindications to organ donation were excluded. The family member/immediate next of kin were approached for the consent for organ donation. <h3>Results</h3> A total of 811 medico-legal autopsies were performed during the study period. Among these, the family members of 244 eligible cases could be approached for cadaveric organ donation, of which only 62 (25.4%) provided the consent. The factors found to be significantly associated with providing consent for organ donation were prior knowledge about organ donation, religion of the participant, education status of the participant, pledge to donation by the deceased individual and counseling provided by a doctor. The commonest reasons given by the participants for refusal of organ donations were disfigurement of the deceased's body (19.2%) and the religious beliefs (15.4%) <h3>Conclusion</h3> Unnatural deaths cases coming for medico-legal autopsy form a major potential pool of organ donors. However, a potentially large donor pool of these death cases is compromised by the lost opportunity cases which could not be approached timely for organ donation and the low acceptance rate for donation.