A nightmare for transplant physicians: Bone marrow donor candidates withdrawing from the donation process

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Although there have been remarkable developments regarding stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) in Turkey, but the number of people who would like to be stem cell donors is not yet at the desired level. The present study aimed to assess the effect of the training delivered by specialists on the thoughts and decisions of the health employees working in our center on being HSCT donors. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Employees in the health sector who have not received any training in HSCT were included in the study. A half-hour of collective training for all participants was delivered by the General Directorate of Health Services Turkey Stem Cell Coordination Center (TÜRKÖK) on January 11-12, 2018. The present study included 274 health employeeswho attended the training delivered by TÜRKÖK. The pre-testand post-test were applied to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, their knowledge andattitudes about stem cell transplantation before and after thetraining, and the factors that motivate and prevent them frombeing a donor. RESULTS: Among the 95 participants, who did not think about being a donor before receiving education, the factors that caused them to not want to be a donor the most were their distrust of the health system (16.5%), the worry of causing pain (15.4%), and the thought that being a bone marrow donor had a negative impact on health (13.4%). A statistically significant increase was found in the rate of those who think about becoming a stem cell transplant donor after education (p:,0001), those who think they have enough information about stem cell transplant (p:,0001), those who think they know where to apply to be a stem cell donor (p:,000) those who thought that the society was sufficiently informed about stem cell transplantation (p:,0001). While 67.3% (171 people) of the participants stated that their determination to be a donor would continue until the end of the whole process, 32.7% (83 people) stated that they could stop being a donor. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that continuing giving such trainings, especially in institutions, will contribute to the increase of the number of stem cell donor volunteers to a sufficient level by raising awareness on the subject and reducing false beliefs in our country.