Gender - A barrier for Willingness to Eye Donation?

Aims: To assess awareness and barriers in attitude toward eye donation in women of Chandigarh. Materials and Methods: A pretested, semi-structured questionnaire. Settings and Design: Prospective cohort study. Study time: 12 months. Statistical Analysis Used: Data were analyzed using the Epi-Info software package, Version 6.04. Results: The majority (82.4%) of women had known that eyes could be donated. But only 5.6% were aware that eyes could be retrieved even at home also. Not many subjects (10.7%) knew about pledge form. Willingness to donate or filling of pledge form was only in 5.5%. Majority of subjects could not make independent decision in eye donation and responded that after consultation with other family members or husband would decide. The subjects were reassessed again after an interval of 3 months. The awareness increased to 100% in the study group. But the attitude toward eye donation did not show much increase. Conclusion: This study depicted the women’s insufficiency in decision making regarding eye donation or signing of pledge forms. To achieve the objectives of vision 2020, prerequisite is to change the negative attitude through behavior change communication toward eye donation and empowering women for taking independent decisions.