New horizons in transplantationOrgan donationDevelopment of a Reliable and Valid Organ Tissue Donation and Transplantation Knowledge Scale

•People have many misconceptions and lack specific knowledge of organ and tissue donation and transplantation. Knowledge regarding organ and tissue donation plays an important role in the decision to donate.•Specific knowledge of organ tissue donation and transplantation such as brain death, medical-legal process, and religious affiliation provides guidance to people who have misconceptions and lack information about organ donation.•Nearly half of the society has a positive attitude about organ donation. However, many people do not know how to participate and lack general knowledge about organ donation.•This situation shows that if knowledge regarding organ donation becomes more clear and understandable in society, donation rates will increase•The ODTKS has adequate reliability and validity for evaluating knowledge about organ tissue donation and transplantation in Turkish adults.

IntroductionKnowledge 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).MethodsWe 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.ResultsThe 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).ConclusionsThe 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.