Attitudes Towards Organ Donation. Influence of Gender and Study Background

Summary

Public surveys are an important tool for assessing acceptance and (un)willingness to donate organs. Various opinion polls suggest, that a majority responds in favor of organ transplantation, but the number of individuals holding an organ donor card, has remained on a low level for years. Apart from the assumed laziness of the public to sign up for organ donor cards, other explanations for this attitude-action gap might be found in hidden cultural factors.

On the other side, since many years, health professionals and politicians discuss various options of financial incentives to increase the organ supply rather than relying on altruism in organ donation.

In ethical and economical debates about financial incentives it is generally assumed that incentives will work. Therefore the critical question rather seems, whether it is ethically and legally acceptable. However, there is a lacuna of empirical studies which have systematically investigated whether more citizens will donate encouraged by financial incentives. .

A quantitative survey has been conducted among students of medical science and economics at a mid-sized central German university to gain insights into the willingness to donate living and post mortem organs and attitudes towards different forms of commercialization (n=755).  The questionnaire consisted of 55 closed questions, amongst others the following: previous knowledge of organ transplantation, passive and active willingness to consent to postmortem and living donation, problems of allocation and commercialization and socio-demographic data.

Data have been analyzed in order to gain insights in the impact of university subject and sex on the willingness to donate and motivation through financial incentives.