Parental attitudes toward pediatric organ donation: a survey

We conducted a telephone survey of parents in the National Capital Region to assess their intention to donate their child's organs and to provide physicians with information that could help alleviate their concerns about approaching parents for consent. Of 339 parents who agreed to answer questions after being given details of their child's "death" 288 (85%) said that they would be willing to donate their child's organs. The degree of willingness was associated with the certainty of death, altruism and empathy toward children in need of an organ, previous discussion of organ donation with a family member and knowledge of an adolescent or adult child's attitude toward donation. Factors that inhibited the intention to donate included uncertainty of death, insufficient information from medical professionals and fear of multilation. The child's age was not significantly associated with intention to donate. Concordance between the results and actual donation rates in Canada and the United States supports the generalizability of the survey findings.