Governance quality indicators for organ procurement policies

Area of Science:

• Bioethics
• Public Health Policy
• Transplantation Science

Background:

• Consent policies for organ procurement (OP) differ across Europe.
• No prior studies empirically assessed ethical implications of contrasting OP consent models.
• Novel indicator of governance quality based on informed support is introduced.

Purpose of the Study:

• Examine national differences in OP policy informedness and preferences.
• Evaluate governance quality across diverse European consent systems.
• Compare policy awareness and support in opt-in versus opt-out countries.

Main Methods:

• Quantitative survey of 2006 students across seven European countries (2017-2019).
• Assessed donation preferences, policy beliefs, and views on existing consent models.
• Computed indices of informedness, policy support, and preference fulfillment for cross-national comparison.

Main Results:

• Significant variation in policy awareness observed across countries.
• Respondents in opt-out countries generally supported policies, while opt-in countries showed informed opposition.
• Governance quality differed, with informed divergence in opt-in and convergence in opt-out systems.

Conclusions:

• Introduced a novel tool for analyzing OP policy governance quality.
• Demonstrated how quantitative survey data can estimate and compare policy implementation strengths and weaknesses.
• Highlighted ethical implications of differing consent policies on public support and informedness.