Medical students’ knowledge and attitude toward brain death and the influence of medical education: a cross-sectional study

Abstract Background The medical students’ knowledge and attitude toward brain death has not been investigated in China. The aims of this study were to assess the knowledge and attitude toward brain death among medical students in China and assess the influence of medical education on the knowledge and attitude. Methods An online questionnaire consisting of 17 questions was developed and completed by undergraduates majoring in clinical medicine in China Medical University. The students’ demographic data, knowledge and attitude toward brain death were collected and analyzed. Results A total of 1075 medical students participated in the survey, and 1051 of them completed the valid questionnaire. The exploratory factor analysis grouped the 17 items into four dimensions, which explained 63.5% of the total variance. These dimensions were named as knowledge (5 items), attitude (5 items), concern (3 items) and education needs (4 items) respectively. The global Cronbach α of the questionnaire was 0.845 and the Cronbach α of the four dimensions ranged from 0.756 to 0.866. The mean dimension scores of knowledge, attitude, concern and education needs was 3.67 ± 0.89, 3.67 ± 0.87, 3.10 ± 1.03 and 4.12 ± 0.72 respectively. The clinical students had a better knowledge than the preclinical students (P