Donation Willingness Research Articles

Sperm donors: their attitudes toward providing medical and psychosocial information for recipient couples and donor offspring

To determine the willingness of sperm donors to provide in-depth medical and psychosocial information on their application forms and to share this information with recipient couples and their offspring. Sperm donors in two donor programs were asked to complete 12-page application forms. In addition to frequency tabulations of responses, chi 2 analyses were performed to compare responses from two programs. The two donor programs were Baylor College of Medicine Sperm Bank Program, Scott Department of Urology, Houston, Texas, and Reproductive Resources, Metairie, Louisiana. Attitude toward providing in-depth medical and psychosocial information to recipient couples. Ninety percent of these donors are willing to complete lengthy application forms providing medical and psychosocial information. Ninety-six percent are willing to share this information in a nonidentifying manner with recipient families. Thirty-six percent say that they will be donors if anonymity cannot be guaranteed, and 60% indicate that they will meet or provide identifying information to the child at age 18. Seventy-two percent left personal messages to their potential offspring. Sperm donors are willing to provide in-depth nonidentifying information for recipient families. Permanent files with medical and psychosocial information on all donors should be developed, maintained, and made available to all recipients, whether they request donor information at the time or conception or not.

The influence of islamic views on public attitudes towards kidney transplant donation in a saudi arabian community

Public attitudes towards organ donation during life and at death were examined in a randomised survey of 850 individuals, both male and female, in a representative Saudi Arabian community in Riyadh. Demographic categories accounted were age, sex, marital status, cultural and ethnic background, educational level and occupation. Of the sampled population 87% were native Saudi and the mean age was 30.7 years. Students and teachers made up the largest occupational groups and only 8.1% were illiterate. Although only 10.1% of all subjects had signed a kidney donor card, a further 42.6% expressed willingness to do so. Acceptance of organ donation at death was highest amongst males and in the age group below 30 years (P less than 0.05). There was no differential effect of the various demographic sub-groups in willingness for kidney donation during life. Sixty-five per cent were ready to donate to a close relative and 9.3% were even prepared to do so to a non-related recipient. The Islamic view supporting concepts of transplantation provided the strongest positive influence for organ donation both during life and at death. Dread of mutilation and the fear that pre-consent may adversely affect treatment after serious injury proved potent negative influences.

On willingness to be a bone marrow donor.

The authors studied factors that may influence the willingness of apheresis donors to consider bone marrow donation to an unrelated recipient. Donors were sent questionnaires describing bone marrow transplantation and the role of the donor. The information about degree of risk to the donor was varied from low to high risk. Two other factors that might influence donor motivation also were presented: probability of actually being asked to participate (high or low), and "salience of responsibility," which defines the stress to donate based on the number of persons being asked (large or small group). The degree of risk presented strongly affected willingness to volunteer, but the two motivation factors had no effect. The factor of risk negatively affected women more than men, and negatively affected those with family responsibilities more than single donors. Other findings were: men were more willing then women to donate marrow; those with few donations were among the most willing; and those who knew others who had either needed or provided blood products were also among the most willing.