Patients' knowledge of anatomical location of major organs within the human body: A comparison between Asians and non-Asians

Objective. This study was designed to ascertain lay knowledge of the anatomical location of major organs within the human body amongst the Asian and non-Asian population in Leicester and to explore the relationships of this knowledge to level of education and social class. Method. The study was based on a cross sectional random sample stratified by from the FHSA Nominal Index Register and data was collected using a personally administered questionnaire in the preferred language of the respondant. Subjects marked the position of the major organs (heart, lungs, kidneys, bladder, liver, brain and stomach) on an image of the human body. The answers were judged against a correct 'response area' produced from a survey of 20 GPs. Results. The overall response rate to the survey was 88.5% with 449 Asians and 447 non-Asians participating. After adjustment for age, sex, education and social class differences, non-Asians were significantly more likely to correctly identify the position of the lungs (P = 0.01) and less likely than Asians to correctly identify the position of the stomach (P < 0.0001). There were no differences found in the knowledge of the position of the other organs. Higher educational attainment was significantly associated with the ability to locate the kidneys (P = 0.0052) and the liver P = 0.0001) and higher social class was associated with greater ability to locate the position of the lungs P = 0.01). Conclusions. Patients show considerable lack of knowledge of the position of major organs within the body. Health professionals will need to address this before embarking upon health promotion.