Promoting Organ Donation among High School Students: An Educational Intervention

Abstract

Objective— To evaluate the impact of a high school education program to promote organ donation awareness. The primary outcomes were intention to discuss organ donation with family or friends and actual discussion behavior. Design— Longitudinal, observational study. Methods— 665 high school students filled out evaluations at the beginning and at the end of a 1-hour education program. One month later, the students were asked to report whether they had discussed donation. Results— After the program, knowledge and attitude scores and the proportion of students who intended to discuss donation increased ( P < .05). At 1-month follow-up, 48% of students reported actual discussion. Intention has a strong, positive relationship with discussion behavior (odds ratio, 8.27; 95% CI, 3.18–21.51). Ethnicity, sex, and attitude of the students were also predictors of donation discussion behavior. Conclusions— This program appears to be effective in prompting discussion of organ donation among high school students.