Knowledge of and opinion on organ transplantation among priests of selected Christian religion

Introduction: As Polish society is in its majority Christian, the knowledge and attitudes presented by priests may have a tangible impact on Church mem-bers’ decisions concerning organ donation. Purpose: To evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and decisions of priests of various Christian denomina-tions regarding organ transplants in Poland. Materials and methods: The paper presents the re-sults of a study carried out in the form of a question-naire survey of 86 priests. Survey participants in-cluded priests of 3 most common Christian denomi-nations in Poland: Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox. Results: Awareness of the current regulatory frame-work among the clergy is relatively low. Only a small percentage gave correct answers to questions about applicable laws regulating the matter of organ transplantation in Poland. Conclusions: Data gathered during the study implies a positive attitude among priests towards organ transplantation performed to save life and improve health. A vast majority of survey participants support the idea of transplantation. The problem is low awareness of existing documents and laws regulating organ transplantation.