90 - Giving a Voice to Our Silent Teachers: Whole-Body Donation from the Donor Perspective

Poster Board Number: 90
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : Introduction: Human body donors play a crucial role in anatomical education, research, and clinical skills training. Those interested in anatomical donation may choose to bequeath their bodies to body donation programs (BDP) housed by academic institutions across the country, state anatomical boards, or for-profit willed body programs. These programs rely heavily on the gift of body donors in order to continue to supply students and researchers with an invaluable educational resource. Despite recommendations from anatomical societies about best practices for BDP, an examination of donation enrollment forms across the United States found that there was little uniformity or transparency throughout the donation consent process (Zealley et al., 2022). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perspective of whole-body donors on the body donation process in order to make recommendations for improvement that align with donor values.
Methods: A Qualtrics survey was administered via email to 2,145 individuals that had enrolled in The Ohio State University’s BDP, and responses were received from 40.2% of registered donors.
Results: When selecting a BDP to receive the donation, donors most commonly selected OSU based on proximity (33.9%), trust (45.3%), and a personal connection to the institution (37.2%). Less than one quarter of donors felt that it was highly important to be able to select the purpose for their donation, but if given the option, 69.1% would elect to participate in anatomy education, 79% in research, and 62.1% in clinical skills training. Over 90% of donors felt comfortable sharing their age at time of death, cause of death, and past medical history with those that will benefit from their gift, while fewer said they would consent to sharing more personal details such as first name (68.8%), last name (46.7%) or occupation (71.3%). Only 8.9% of donors felt that their loved ones should be permitted to make changes to their enrollment forms after they have passed. A majority of donors felt that it was of high importance for BDP to have an advisory committee to oversee program operations, and similarly, that it is important for research projects involving body donors to go through an ethical review process. When asked how the process could be improved, thematic analysis of donor statements revealed that participants would like the university to raise more awareness about whole-body donation and that they would appreciate more consistent communication from the BDP throughout their lifetime as a registered donor.
Conclusions: The findings reveal that a majority of donors do not place high importance on detailed consent options during the enrollment process, but do value BDP oversight and choices regarding anonymity. Donors generally felt strongly that the choices they made on their donation enrollment form should not be altered by loved ones after death.
Significance: The results of this study showed which consent options are important to donors during the enrollment process, and thus can help BDP tailor the recruitment and enrollment experience to reflect donor values. Findings from this study shed light on the donor perspective and may be used to improve the donation enrollment process at OSU and similar institutions across the country to enhance donor recruitment, enrollment, and satisfaction.