Crisis in Organ Donations: A Survey of Public Attitudes on Organ Donations and Suggestions for Improvement in the Donation Process

Despite dramatic advances in transplant medicine and legislative efforts to increase organ donation, thousands of patients die each year awaiting a transplant. To assess the number of organ donors and attitudes toward several proposed strategies to increase donation rates, we conducted a telephone survey of randomly selected adults from three counties in Maryland and one in Pennsylvania. Among the respondents, 48 percent were organ donors, and a majority (73 percent) of nondonors either had no specific objections to becoming an organ donor or had not yet done so. The primacy of organ donor wishes over the wishes of their next of kin was strongly supported (84 percent). In contrast, only 41 percent and 37 percent of respondents respectively supported the concepts of presumed consent or financial compensation for organ donation. In the light of these survey results, potential strategies to improve donation rates are discussed.