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3.6 Beliefs About Organ and Tissue Donation
A variety of beliefs about organ donation may be related to granting permission to donate on a driver's license, donor card, or registry or may be related to the willingness to do so. Some of these beliefs constitute misinformation that organ procurement organizations and others attempt to counteract. Table 8 presents results for several of these beliefs that constitute either true information or misinformation about organ donation.
This table provides two types of data — the intensity of belief and the impact of belief on granting permission to donate or willingness to donate. Intensity of belief is indicated by the degree to which people either "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree" with the belief statement. Which end of the scale to focus on depends on whether the statement is true information or misinformation about donation. For example, one would want the public to "strongly agree" with the statement, "Most members of your family support the idea of organ and tissue donation," but to "strongly disagree" with the statement, "Organ transplantation is an experimental medical procedure."
These beliefs could potentially be affected by public education campaigns to increase organ donation or willingness to donate. It may be more productive to first address those where a smaller proportion of the public is at the desired end of the scale, implying that more people could be moved toward organ donation by changing their beliefs.
The other type of data in the table is the impact of belief. This is indicated by the correlation of beliefs with the outcomes of granting permission to donate or willingness to donate. The correlation is a statistic that indicates the strength of relationship and the direction of relationship. The strength of the relationship can range from 0, implying no relationship, to 1, implying a perfect relationship. In the table, beliefs with stronger relationships to granting permission to donate or willingness to donate are near the top of Table 8 and beliefs with little or no relationship are at the bottom. A larger correlation means that the more people "strongly agree" with the belief statement the more likely they are to grant permission to donate or be willing to donate. Direction of the relationship is indicated by the negative sign in front of the number. Negative correlations imply that as agreement with the statement increases the likelihood of donation decreases. A positive correlation, one without a negative sign, indicates that as the agreement with the statement increases, the likelihood of donation also increases.
A public education campaign intended to move beliefs toward donation is likely to have a bigger impact if the belief has a higher correlation. Thus, the best opportunities for improvement are beliefs that have relatively low intensity, but high potential for impact. Public education that moves a large number of people on a belief that is highly correlated with donation has the best opportunity to have an impact on donation.
One way to identify potential beliefs to be addressed is to identify the beliefs that tend to be below average in intensity of belief and above average in potential impact. With regard to increasing people's willingness to donate, the data indicate that the following beliefs have the greatest potential:
- Most members of your family support the idea of organ and tissue donation
- It is important for a person's body to have all of its parts when it is buried
- Organ and tissue donation helps families cope with their grief
- Given equal need, a poor person has as good a chance as a rich person of getting an organ transplant
- Organ and tissue donation can often transmit diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis, or West Nile virus
Increasing agreement with first, third, and fourth beliefs in the above list, or decreasing agreement with the others, is likely to have the greatest overall effect on willingness to donate.
With regard to increasing the likelihood of granting permission to donate on a driver's license, donor card, or registry, a campaign focusing on the following beliefs may have the greatest potential:
- Most members of your family support the idea of organ and tissue donation
- Organ and tissue donation can often transmit diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis, or West Nile virus
- People who choose to donate a family member's organs end up paying extra medical bills
- It is important for a person's body to have all of its parts when it is buried
- Organ and tissue donation helps families cope with their grief
Increasing agreement with the first and last beliefs in the above list, or decreasing agreement with the others, is likely to have the greatest overall effect on willingness to donate.
It should be noted, however, that these are attitudinal drivers or barriers to donation that might be addressed by public education. A complete approach also will identify and address institutional and organizational barriers to donation.
Table 8. Beliefs About Donation and Correlations With Donation and Willingness to Donate
| |
Percentage Responding |
Correlation With |
Question |
Strongly
Disagree |
Somewhat
Disagree |
Somewhat
Agree |
Strongly
Agree |
Granted
Permission |
Willing to
Donate |
| Most members of your family support the idea of organ and tissue donation |
6.9 |
11.5 |
37.2 |
44.3 |
0.411 |
0.333 |
| It is important for a person's body to have all of its parts when it is buried |
56.9 |
23.7 |
9.7 |
9.7 |
-0.335 |
-0.326 |
| Organ donation allows something positive to come out of a person's death |
2.2 |
1.9 |
17.8 |
78.1 |
0.341 |
0.175 |
| You are worried that a loved one's body would be disfigured if his or her organs were donated |
61.3 |
22.1 |
8.9 |
7.7 |
-0.298 |
-0.225 |
| People your age are too old to donate organs |
74.2 |
13.3 |
7.1 |
5.4 |
-0.301 |
-0.150 |
| Organ and tissue donation is against your religion |
82.9 |
10.5 |
3.3 |
3.3 |
-0.251 |
-0.149 |
| Most people who receive transplants gain additional years of healthy life |
1.2 |
3.1 |
27.5 |
68.3 |
0.272 |
0.178 |
| Organ and tissue donation helps families cope with their grief |
6.0 |
10.9 |
49.3 |
33.8 |
0.214 |
0.205 |
| If you indicate you intend to be a donor, doctors will be less likely to try to save your life |
61.0 |
23.1 |
8.6 |
7.3 |
-0.303 |
-0.113 |
| People who choose to donate a family member's organs end up paying extra medical bills |
48.4 |
33.0 |
12.4 |
6.2 |
-0.285 |
-0.107 |
| People your age are too old to receive transplants |
76.0 |
14.7 |
4.6 |
4.7 |
-0.213 |
-0.177 |
| Organ transplantation is an experimental medical procedure |
58.6 |
18.8 |
14.5 |
8.2 |
-0.205 |
-0.168 |
| Doctors will do everything they can to save a person's life before organ donation is even considered |
3.2 |
4.0 |
21.2 |
71.6 |
0.196 |
0.103 |
| Organ and tissue donation can often transmit diseases, such as HIV, hepatitis, or West Nile virus |
24.1 |
23.6 |
31.1 |
21.2 |
-0.226 |
-0.118 |
| It is important for people to tell their families whether or not they would want their organs to be donated upon death |
1.7 |
1.2 |
15.0 |
82.1 |
0.200 |
0.075 |
| Every year, thousands of people die due to a lack of donated organs for transplantation |
3.0 |
4.4 |
26.8 |
65.8 |
0.226 |
-0.103 |
| It is possible for a brain -dead person to recover from his or her injuries |
48.7 |
18.4 |
20.9 |
12.0 |
-0.169 |
-0.102 |
| Transplants often go to undeserving people |
52.3 |
26.6 |
15.2 |
5.8 |
-0.127 |
-0.116 |
| A person's wish to donate his or her organs should be honored under all circumstances |
2.6 |
6.5 |
22.7 |
68.1 |
0.154 |
0.009 |
| Discrimination prevents minority patients from receiving the organ transplants they need |
10.1 |
21.0 |
28.4 |
40.4 |
-0.147 |
-0.036 |
| It is impossible to have a regular funeral service following organ and tissue donation |
78.0 |
11.7 |
5.3 |
5.0 |
-0.100 |
-0.005 |
| All people who need an organ transplant receive a transplant |
63.6 |
19.1 |
7.8 |
9.4 |
-0.067 |
-0.102 |
| There should be a registry of people who wish to be organ donors that can be accessed at the time of a person's death to make sure his or her wishes are known |
2.2 |
3.2 |
19.7 |
74.9 |
0.130 |
0.019 |
| Given equal need, a poor person has as good a chance as a rich person of getting an organ transplant |
23.8 |
28.8 |
20.5 |
27.0 |
-0.012 |
0.126 |
| A deceased person's next of kin should be able to override the deceased person's wish to donate his or her organs |
60.8 |
18.3 |
12.7 |
8.2 |
-0.018 |
0.072 |
Some of the items used in the survey questionnaire for this study are proprietary content owned by The Gallup Organization. A complete list is found on the Copyright page. Copyright © 1993, 2005 The Gallup Organization, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved.
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