Examining Organ Donor Gratitude Letters as a Novel Approach to Boost Organ Donor Registrations in South Korea

With recent drops in organ donation support exacerbating the organ shortage, the current investigation sought to explore the potential for organ donor gratitude letters to be utilized in organ donation promotion. To this end, we conducted a content analysis of gratitude letters shared on Korean Organ Donation Agency's (KODA) website (N = 98), with an emphasis on identifying the emotions recipients experienced throughout their transplant journey, tribute messages to donors, and supportive messages to donor families. Results revealed that when writing about pre-transplantation, hopelessness was mentioned most often, followed by sadness. During transplant, hopelessness was again mentioned most often, however, there was no mention of sadness. In the post-transplant phase, recipients most often mentioned gratitude, followed by happiness and guilt. Such shifts in emotions created an emotional flow within the narrative, from hopelessness and sadness, through sheer hopelessness, to gratitude. Tributes often described donors as heroes and rarely referenced religion, contradicting the belief that religiosity is a barrier to organ donation in East Asia. Currently, organ donation promotional efforts do not make organ recipient letters available to the public. Further implications of donor tribute letters in promoting organ donation are discussed.