IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v59y2004i11p2325-2334.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Death and organ procurement: public beliefs and attitudes

Author

Listed:
  • Siminoff, Laura A.
  • Burant, Christopher
  • Youngner, Stuart J.

Abstract

While brain death and the dead donor rule (patients must not be killed by organ retrieval) have been clinically and legally accepted in the US as a prerequisite to organ removal, there is little data about public attitudes and beliefs concerning these matters. To examine the public attitudes and beliefs about the determination of death and its relationship to organ transplantation, 1351 Ohio residents [greater-or-equal, slanted]18 years were randomly selected and surveyed using random digit dialing (RDD) sample frames. The RDD telephone survey was conducted using computer-assisted telephone interviews. The survey instrument was developed from information provided by 12 focus groups and a pilot study of the questionnaire. Three scenarios based on hypothetical patients were presented: brain dead, in a coma, or in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Respondents' provided personal assessments of whether the patient in each scenario was dead and their willingness to donate that patient's organs in these circumstances. Over 98% of respondents had heard of the term brain death, but only one-third (33.7%) believed that someone who was brain dead was legally dead. The majority of respondents (86.2%) identified the brain dead patient in the first scenario as dead, 57.2% identified the patient in a coma as dead (Scenario 2), and 34.1% identified the patient in a PVS as dead (Scenario 3). Nearly, a third (33.5%) were willing to donate the organs of patients they classified as alive for at least one scenario, in seeming violation of the dead donor rule. Most respondents were not willing to violate the dead donor rule, although a substantial minority was. However, the majority of respondents were unaware, misinformed or held beliefs that were not congruent with current definitions of brain death. This study highlights the need for more public dialogue and education about brain death and organ donation.

Suggested Citation

  • Siminoff, Laura A. & Burant, Christopher & Youngner, Stuart J., 2004. "Death and organ procurement: public beliefs and attitudes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(11), pages 2325-2334, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:59:y:2004:i:11:p:2325-2334
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(04)00160-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Oreg, Ayelet, 2019. "Milk donation after losing one's baby: Adopting a donor identity as a means of coping with loss," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Schweda, Mark & Schicktanz, Silke, 2009. "Public ideas and values concerning the commercialization of organ donation in four European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1129-1136, March.
    3. Maria del Mar Lomero & María F. Jiménez‐Herrera & Maria José Rasero & Alberto Sandiumenge, 2017. "Nurses' attitudes and knowledge regarding organ and tissue donation and transplantation in a provincial hospital: A descriptive and multivariate analysis," Nursing & Health Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(3), pages 322-330, September.
    4. Long, Tracy & Sque, Magi & Addington-Hall, Julia, 2008. "Conflict rationalisation: How family members cope with a diagnosis of brain stem death," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 253-261, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:59:y:2004:i:11:p:2325-2334. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.