Impact of an Educational Intervention on Organ Donation Attitudes in College-Aged Students

Abstract

As the national demand for donated organs continues to rise, the rate of registered donors within the United States has remained stagnant, creating a shortage of viable, transferrable organs. Lack of registered donors can be partially attributed to misconceptions about organ donation, which has led to a population less willing to register as organ donors. The utilization of educational interventions can begin to address common misconceptions and change attitudes to favor organ donation. A quantitative pretest, posttest survey design was utilized in order to assess effectiveness of an educational intervention within the college-aged population. Results suggest that educational interventions are effective in creating positive attitudes about organ donation in college-aged students.

Public education materials about Vascular Composite Allotransplantation and donation in the United States: Current scope and limitations

“…Educational materials and platforms such as social media provide the transplant community with an opportunity to increase awareness and trust of organ donation and transplantation, particularly for a growing field like VCA. Educational interventions have successfully improved attitudes toward and trust in solid organ transplantation 7‐10 . Likewise, a survey of 300 members of the public found that watching an educational video on face transplantation yielded an 18% increase in willingness to donate facial tissue 12 .…”

“…In solid organ transplantation, mistrust and a lack of education have been identified as barriers to organ donation registration 5,6 . However, educational interventions have successfully improved attitudes toward and trust in organ donation in general 7‐10 . As a relatively new therapy, public awareness of and willingness to donate VCA lags behind solid organ transplantation, 11‐13 but targeted educational interventions have shown some promise in increasing awareness and acceptance of VCA 12…”

“…5,6 However, educational interventions have successfully improved attitudes toward and trust in organ donation in general. [7][8][9][10] As a relatively new therapy, public awareness of and willingness to donate VCA lags behind solid organ transplantation, [11][12][13] but targeted educational interventions have shown some promise in increasing awareness and acceptance of VCA. 12 As the field of VCA develops, demand for VCA donations will increase.…”

Would you donate your body? Attitudes of students of nursing and physiotherapy towards body donation for educational and scientific purposes

“…Analyzing the literature that focused on body donation, one can note that a substantial portion of such studies is devoted to the attitude of students, from both medical and non-medical faculties, to the act of donating organs for transplantation [10,12,15,25,29,32,33,35,36,39,43,44,48], to the cadaver dissection for teaching anatomy [2,6,24] as well as to the attitude towards body donation among university staff [4,5,13,38,47], or among the elderly [31]. There are but a few studies that deal with the attitude to whole body donation after death, particularly among the students who do not plan to become medical doctors.…”

Public Perceptions and Information Needs of VCA Transplantation and Donation: A Mixed Methods Study

“…Understanding public perceptions of and attitudes towards VCA can help identify knowledge gaps and concerns to address in order to foster public understanding and trust with VCA authorization and donation ( 14 ). Identifying knowledge gaps in the public’s understanding of VCA can reveal specific topics on which to provide information, common misconceptions to dispel, and barriers for donation to address.…”