Nursing students’ metaphors of organ donation: Implications for health education

Background: Organ donation is vital for sustaining the lives of individuals with organ failure, yet transplant rates remain low in Türkiye and globally. While nurses have a key role to play in public education and supporting donation decisions, limited research has explored nursing students’ metaphorical perceptions of organ donation – an approach that can reveal underlying values, beliefs and professional attitudes. Aim: To explore nursing students’ perceptions of organ donation through metaphor analysis, providing insights for nursing education and public awareness strategies. Method: This descriptive qualitative study, grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, was conducted with 205 undergraduate nursing students at a university in Ankara. Data were collected using an open-ended form in which participants completed the sentence: ‘Organ donation is like . . . because . . .’. Using purposive sampling, 63 invalid metaphors were excluded, leaving 142 valid responses. A five-stage thematic analysis was undertaken, involving metaphor identification, categorisation, thematic structuring, validation and reporting with illustrative quotations. Results: Analysis identified four main themes and eight subthemes: Life (‘giving life’, ‘being’); Hope and Future (‘a light in despair’, ‘expectation of a new beginning’); Altruism and Sacrifice (‘giving selflessly’, ‘responsibility to do good’) and Rebirth (‘a second chance’, ‘returning to life’). Common metaphors included ‘water’, ‘hope’, ‘rebirth’ and ‘sharing’. Conclusion: Nursing students conceptualised organ donation as a holistic act encompassing emotional, ethical and humanistic dimensions, often linking it to continuity of life and hope, and second chances. These findings highlight the value of incorporating metaphor analysis into nursing curricula to foster ethical awareness, empathy and advocacy skills. Public awareness campaigns should also integrate values-based messages that emotionally engage target audiences.