A Qualitative Study On Motives Of Organ Donation

ObjectiveThis study is aimed to understand the motivations of and factors related to organ donation by research on organ donor. This study tries to find out effective strategies to motivate organ donation, to prove valued information in development of government policy and legislation and to come up with practical guidance for organ transplant staff.MethodsA qualitative study was used to extend our limit understanding of psychological and behavior theory behind organ donation. Semi-structured in-deep face to face interviews were carried out to organ donors registered in Red Cross Society of Hunan. Interviews were tape-recorded using a Newman Digital Recorder with the consent of the interviewees. All the interviews were transcribed verbatim. Data analysis was based on the grounded theory and was carried out in Nvivo8.0.ResultsThere were34interviewees. Seventeen were female. They were aged from21to71years old. The mean age is50years of age. Eight of them were members of the Communist Party of China. For religious belief,29donors were non-believers,3were Christians and two were Buddhists. Seventeen of them were willing to donor their bodies. Most of them had told their families of their donation will and eight donors had not.After coding and data analysis, six different kinds of motivations were identified. They were:helping others, fulfilling own will, decreasing the burden, making full use of everything, contributing to the society and continuation of life. Among all of these, helping others was the most important motivation for organ donation.Demography, traditional values, personal experiences, attitude of families, influences from a role model, media and donation system were the main seven factors that could promote or obstacle organ donation.Conclusion According to the results of this study, The main motivation for organ donation includes altruism, fulfill one’s will, decrease burden of descendants, making full use of everything, contributing to society and continuation of life. Altruism is the central motivation. Demography, traditional values, personal experiences, attitude of families, influences from a role model, media and donation system are the factors that could influence organ donation.