If you needed an organ transplant would you have one? The effect of reciprocity priming and mode of delivery on organ donor registration intentions and behaviour

Abstract

Reciprocal altruism may be a useful tool in increasing intentions to join the organ donor register. Further evaluation is required to determine whether this increase in intention can be translated into organ donation behaviour. Statement of contribution What was already known? Demand for organs in the United Kingdom far outstrips supply, so finding strategies to increase registration on the organ donor register could save hundreds of lives per year. Despite the majority of people in the United Kingdom agreeing that organ donation is a good thing, most people do not register as donors. A limited amount of evidence of the impact of perceived reciprocity suggests that encouraging people to consider themselves as recipients and priming ideas of shared responsibility may increase the likelihood of their subsequent willingness to register. What does this study add? Novel evidence that employing a simple reciprocity prime increases organ donor registration intentions. Replication of findings across two separate studies. Novel examination of the impact of mode of delivery of messages to encourage organ donation. A basis for further research into the translation of intentions into organ donor registration behaviour.

Blood and organ donation: health impact, prevalence, correlates, and interventions

“…These ideas gained some support in a pilot study which showed that medical students' intentions to donate were higher following exposure to a VRA message (Landry, 2006). Developing on this, O'Carroll, Haddow, Foley, andQuigley (2017) and showed that nonregistered participants exposed to a VRA message, compared to controls, reported greater intentions to register. The effect of VRA on behaviour (donor registration) was demonstrated by the results from a large scale (1 million participants) trial comparing nine different messages on UK driving license application web pages.…”

Effect of persuasive messages on National Health Service Organ Donor Registrations: a pragmatic quasi-randomised controlled trial with one million UK road taxpayers

“…Since a preliminary report of this study was published [ 29 ], the reciprocity message has been tested by other researchers with similarly positive effects. In Scotland, a similar reciprocity message increased intentions to join the ODR compared to controls, in particular when delivered online as opposed to face to face [ 30 ], providing further support for the use of the reciprocity message for online government platforms. Both sets of findings support Landry’s [ 21 ] feasibility study, making salient the potential reciprocal nature of the decision to join the ODR.…”

Theory Content, Question-Behavior Effects, or Form of Delivery Effects for Intention to Become an Organ Donor? Two Randomized Trials

“…We tested a question-behavior effect with or without affective attitudes, assessing whether completion of affective attitude items reduces intention to donate, but including dummy items to overcome the mere measurement (question-behavior) effect. Two modalities of intervention delivery were tested to determine if a social desirability effect, i.e., being in the presence of an interviewer, masks the effects of including affective attitudes on intention to donate [21].…”