Development of a Reliable and Valid Organ Tissue Donation and Transplantation Knowledge Scale

Introduction

Knowledge has an important role in an individual's willingness to donate organs upon death. Knowledge enables clarification of false beliefs, which can increase willingness to consent to organ donation. The purpose of the study was to describe and examine the validity and reliability of the Organ-Tissue Donation and Transplantation Knowledge Scale (ODTKS).

Methods

We performed a comprehensive literature review and chose 23 items for the scale according to specialists' recommendations. A total of 6 items were excluded from the scale. Finally, the scale consisted of 17 items and 2 subdimensions.

Results

The study group consisted of 540 (267 [49.4%] male and 273 [50.6%] female) nonmedical staff members; 23.5% were primary school graduates, 47.6% were high school graduates, and 28.9% had university degrees or higher. The difficulty index and discrimination index of the overall scale were 22.41% to 54.07% and 0.23 to 0.46, respectively. Cronbach α coefficient was 0.88 overall. Retest reliability scores were significant (r = 0.87, P < .001).

Conclusions

The total score of the ODTKS was significantly higher among university graduates compared with primary school graduates and among people willing to donate. The ODTKS therefore has adequate reliability and validity for evaluating Turkish adults' knowledge about organ tissue donation and transplantation.