The view of religious officials on organ donation and transplantation in the Zeytinburnu District of Istanbul.

Abstract

One of the obstacles to organ donation and transplantation in Turkey is that of religious beliefs and, at this point, religious officials constitute a key aspect of this problem. Positive or negative viewpoints held by religious officials regarding organ donation and transplantation are influential in guiding the public. This descriptive study was conducted for the purpose of describing religious officials’ viewpoints on this subject. To determine the opinions of 40 religious officials from among the imams and muezzins working in Zeytinburnu District Mufti (Religious Officials Superior) Station who participated in a normal meeting in April and who fully completed the survey. A 27-question survey form was used that consisted of open-ended and closed questions, 5 of which were on socio-demographic characteristics, 13 on viewpoints on organ donation and transplantation, and 9 on the Islamic viewpoint regarding organ donation and transplantation. For the analysis of the results, Student’s t test and one-way ANOVA tests were used. It was found that all of the religious officials believed in the importance of organ donation, 80 % considered donating their organs, and 5 % had made an organ donation. Of the religious officials who had not donated organs, 35 % gave an answer that there was no specific reason and 27.5 % stated that they had never considered the subject