Study: Organ Donation Videos Can Have a Negative Effect on Donation Rates

A new study has found that a real organ donation campaign video can increase people’s thoughts about death and distrust of organ donation.

The findings by Yu-Hao Lee, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Media Production, Management, and Technology associate professor, and Texas A&M Assistant Professor Sining Kong are featured in “How to Use Worldview Value to Cope with Non-Organ Donors’ Fear of Death in an Online Organ Donation Campaign” published in Current Psychology on Aug. 22.

In their study, Lee and Kong argue that organ donation rates are low because the thought of donating organs evokes thoughts about death, which people want to avoid.

According to the authors, “In this paper, we showed that watching an organ donation ad does evoke thoughts about death and makes people unconsciously avoid the subject. Our second study showed that we can reduce this fear and avoidance by reminding people of their value in society.”

They add, “Improving people’s medical trust in an organ donation campaign can effectively change people’s attitude and behavioral intention of becoming organ donors.”

Posted: August 23, 2024
Category: College News
Tagged as: Current Psychology, MPMT, Organ Donation, Yu-Hao Lee