Channels of being informed about kidney transplantation centers for patients with end stage kidney disease

Abstract

Purpose: There are around 60,000 patients going through dialysis in our country. Although there are numerous successful transplant teams, the number of transplantations achieved has not reached the desired level. For this reason, kidney transplantation centers which keep increasing in number, have started different activities to inform these patients about the kidney transplantation. In our study, the patients having applied to three of the transplant centers in Istanbul were observed on how efficacious the activities were on the subjects. Patients and method: Patients having applied to the transplant centers in A (n: 1314), B (n: 27) and C (n: 229) hospitals, in the period between January 2, 2008 and December 31, 2010 were investigated by the organ transplant coordinators about how they were informed about these centers. In this study, it was observed that the patients got to know about the centers through dialysis centers stuffs, nephrologists, other patients, media and internet, etc. sources. We investigated on the differences these sources created in the different hospitals. In addition to these, on July 1, 2010; a website was established by A hospital with the same purpose. Also, the effect of this site in referring patients to the clinic was investigated. Results: We found out that patients were informed about organ transplantation centers from other patients, who have had organ transplantation (40.6%); dialysis centers (32.9%), media (9.6%), nephrologists (8.0%), internet (5.2%) and others (3.6%) (p=0.011). In A hospital, the mean average application number which was 34.6 patients/month went up to 44.5 patients/month after the establishment of the website. The website was found to be the only reason for the increase. Conclusion: Besides the mentioned factors; the internet which lately plays a great role in our daily life, also becomes an important guide for information for patients who want to have organ transplantation.