Why do potential body donors decide against donating?

The Department of Anatomy at the University of Otago has been accepting body bequests for anatomical study for about 70 years. Donated bodies are used to teach anatomy to medical and dental students and surgical trainees and a wide range of other undergraduate and postgraduate students rely on body specimens to learn anatomy. Maintaining a robust body bequest programme is essential for these educational programmes. The profile of our body donors is reasonably well understood but little is known about why individuals who are interested in body donation decide not to complete the registration process.

To investigate the reason(s) why applicants request bequest information but do not complete the registration process.

In March 2012, an anonymous questionnaire was sent to 142 individuals who had contacted the Department between January 2010 and August 2011 requesting bequest information but had not completed the registration process.

Eleven questionnaires failed to reach the intended recipient reducing the sample size to 131. Seventy eight respondents (60%) completed the questionnaire. The prime motivation for enquiring about body donation was a desire to aid medicine. The commonest single reason for not completing the registration process was our donor weight restriction of 90 kg, cited by 25% of respondents. Other reasons included objections by a family member and restrictions related to potential prion disease. Fourteen respondents had lost their registration form, and a further 15 hadn't yet made up their mind whether to donate; 18 of these have since completed the registration process.

Restrictions on the acceptance of a body at the time of death deter some interested individuals from body donation. About 40% of respondents to this survey had either lost their form or were still considering body donation, many of whom were prompted to complete the registration process by this survey. Bequest programmes should consider sending a follow-up letter to individuals who request information but subsequently fail to register within a few months.