Crowdsourcing Attitudes and Beliefs About Upper Extremity Donation in the United States

Introduction To date, upper extremity transplantation (UET) is the most frequently performed vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA). Perceptions regarding upper extremity donation among Americans, particularly in veterans and service members (VSMs), are largely unknown. Materials and methods We administered a one-time survey to United States (US)-resident Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers aged ≥18 years. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize study data; frequencies and percentages were calculated for categorical variables analyzed by Fischer's exact test and using a two-tailed test assessing the statistical significance of p<0.05. Results A total of 860 respondents completed the study survey. Among these, 529 (61.5%) reported willingness to donate an upper extremity, 152 (17.7%) were undecided, and 179 (20.8%) were unwilling. A significantly higher proportion of those willing to donate were female (66.7%, p=0.009), non-Hispanic (63.9%, p=0.000), White (64.0%, p=0.004), non-religious (71.3%, p=0.001), not a VSM (62.8%, p=0.000), or non-amputees (62.9%, p=0.000). Conclusions Our survey found that being female, non-Hispanic, White, non-religious, non-VSM, or non-amputee was significantly associated with donation willingness. These findings may help guide VCA programs, organ procurement organizations, and researchers in efforts to develop targeted educational materials to broaden the public's knowledge and awareness of VCA donation to further benefit all patients in need of or desiring transplantation.