Healthcare professionals and scientists' collaboration with biobanks: a pilot study on the assessment of knowledge and attitudes towards biospecimen donation

Anastasiia A Mikhailova ¹ Elena S Bogomiagkova ² Yulia A Nasykhova ^1* Roman A Illarionov ¹ Maria M Danilova ¹ Ziravard N Tonyan ¹ Vyacheslav B Chernykh ³ Ludmila V Kovalenko ⁴ Olesya N Bespalova ¹ Andrey S Glotov ¹

• ¹ D. O. Ott Research Institute of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductology, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• ² Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Saint Petersburg, Russia
• ³ Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Russia
• ⁴ Medical Institute, Surgut State University, Surgut, Russia

Background: Difficulties in the biobank progress are often associated with insufficient public awareness, but it is also worth paying attention to healthcare and science professionals who play an important role in the development of this area. This article presents results of the research on awareness towards biobanking and motivation to collaborate among employees of 3 medical and scientific organizations in Russia.The anonymous survey was carried out via an online platform. The research included 176 healthcare and science professionals. To assess the differences between the groups the Pearson Chi-square test and the contingency coefficient were used. To find correlations between nominal and interval variables the Eta criterion was applied.Results: It was found that 88.1% of respondents were aware of biobanking in general, however, 15.0% were not aware of a biobank in their organization or had difficulty in answering this question. The experience of cooperation with biobanks was not particularly extensivemore than half of the respondents (60.3%) indicated that they had never contacted biobanks. 11.9% of participants became donors themselves. 35.0% -suggested to their friends and patients to become donors, while 86.2% were willing to do this in the future. The study showed that the respondents who already had experience working with biobanks, as well as those who themselves act as a donor, rated the importance of their activities higher.It is important to increase not only awareness but also motivation to cooperate with biobanks and be willing to take on different roles.