Doação de órgãos: representação social de acadêmicos dos cursos da área da saúde

Abstract

Organ donation consists in a process where organs from living or dead people are transferred to individuals with some pathology that invalidates one or more systems. This topic has a strong relationship with solidarity, but it is still difficult for the population to understand, as the process has several stages that need to be explained to family members, especially in case of post-mortem donors. Objective: Understand the social representations that students in the health field have about organ donation. Method: Qualitative study, developed from the framework of the Theory of Social Representations through its structural approach. The participants were students from undergraduate nursing and medicine courses at the Federal University of Fronteira Sul - UFFS Campus Chapecó.The data collection was carried out from the second half of May to the second half of August 2024 using the Google Forms platform. The instrument was divided into two stages: the first consisted of information to characterize the participants; in the second, participants were asked to write five cognemes that they immediately associated with the term “organ donation”. The data obtained was analyzed using the Iramuteq software in three different ways: frequency, prototypical and similarity analysis. Results: The study involved 151 students, predominantly female (66.23%) and aged between 20 and 25 years old (52.31%). The majority of participants identified themselves as Catholic (45.03%) or evangelical (19.2%), with the majority being medical students (53.64%), with the remainder being Nursing students (46 .36%). The classes with the highest participation were the 3rd semester (29.8%) and the 1st semester (21.85%). In the analysis of words associated with "Organ Donation", the most evoked cognemes were “life” (75 times), followed by “empathy”, “love”, “help” and “hope”. In the central core of the prototypical analysis, “life” was the strongest term, along with concepts such as “solidarity” and “save”. Terms like “love” and “hope” appeared on the periphery of the core. The similarity analysis highlighted "life" as the central word, suggesting a strong association between organ donation and life. The desire to donate organs was largely positive, with more than 90% of students in favor. Discussion: The study of nursing and medical students' social representations in relation to the donation of “life” organizations as a central concept, transmitting a positive and valuing vision of the lives of others. The main cognems “Empathy”, “Love”, “Help”, “Hope”, “Solidarity”, “Compassion” and “Save” reflect a human and emotional understanding, related to training in the initial stage and the profile of the courses health, which balance technical knowledge and empathy. Other terms, such as “Love” and “Compassion”, reinforce the ethical nature of donation, while “Surgery” represents a more technical view. Terms like “Need” and “Heart” indicate a pragmatic but also emotional vision. A similarity analysis confirmed the importance of “life” and its connection with “saving” and “helping”, showing that students associate donation with the renewal of life. Noting that more than 90% of students stated that they would accept to be donors, revealing an extremely positive attitude. Conclusion: The complex and positive view of the students about organ donation suggests opportunities for developing more effective campaigns that address social concerns. The students' favorable attitude indicates a promising future for the topic. The inclusion of more participants from different regions of the country in future studies can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding and improve knowledge about the organ donation process.