| Abstrakt: |
Context -- Clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) serve as gatekeepersin the quest to fill organ donor registries. Most people who join organ donor registriesdo so through their local driver's license bureau.Objective -- To improve knowledge, attitudes, and behavior toward organ donationamong DMV clerks, and to improve strategies for communicating with the publicabout organ donation, resulting in more people joining DMV-based organ donorregistries.Setting -- DMV offices in 8 counties in a southern state.Participants -- A general survey of 1504 participants in 8 counties was conductedto assess knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward organ donation. All76 DMV clerks in those counties participated in surveys before and after a trainingintervention.Interventions -- DMV clerks received a 1-hour training intervention focused onthe nature of the new organ donor registry, information about organ donation, andcommunication strategies for interacting with the public.Main Outcome Measures -- Knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and behavioralintentions toward organ donation were measured for the general public survey andfor DMV clerks.Results -- Clerks were more knowledgeable about brain death and religious stanceson organ donation than the general public, but otherwise both groups shared similarknowledge, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and behavioral intentions toward organdonation. Overall the general public and clerks had favorable attitudes toward organdonation but low to moderate knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors and behavioralintentions. Training significantly increased DMV clerks' knowledge, attitude, beliefs,and behavioral intention toward donation. Organ donor registration rates were amean of 14% higher in counties where clerks were trained than in control countiesand were 9% higher than statewide.Conclusions -- Training DMV clerks is an effective way to increase knowledge,attitudes, and beliefs for gatekeepers of organ donor registries and may increasedonor registration rates among the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
