Impact of Video-Based Interventions on Willingness to Donate Decedent Tissue

Over 60% of decedents in the US have not given first-person consent for tissue donation, thus, receiving consent from next-of-kin (NOK) is important. As a more informed NOK is more likely to consent to tissue donation, we introduced the delivery of a video that discusses the benefits of donation as part of the request for donation to the NOK. We delivered two videos to NOK who were approached for tissue donation. One was an animated, freely available video developed by the United States Health Resources and Services Administration and the other was an interview-based video made in partnership with the Nevada Donor Network. We focused our intervention on improving White donation rates as many historical factors make this simple, minimal intervention unlikely to be sufficient to encourage non-White donation but its use for White NOK may free resources that could be dedicated to non-White NOK. Whites were more likely to donate if they viewed either video, and the two videos were not statistically different in their effect. As those that accepted the video may have been predisposed to donate, we performed an online experiment that does not suffer from this endogeneity concern. In the online experiment we found parallel results to the field, and we found suggestive evidence that the informational content in the video increased donation willingness. We have therefore identified a cheap and easy to implement intervention (the free animated video) that could improve tissue availability from White NOK (who are the majority ethnic group in our setting).