Organ donation rates have continued to fall seriously short of needs worldwide, with the lowest rates recorded among developing economies. This study seeks to analyze evidence from a developing economy to explore the usefulness of social psychological theory to solve the problem. The study deployed a large survey (n = 10 412) using a convenience sampling procedure targeted at increasing the number of Malaysians registered with the Ministry of Health, Malaysia who are willing to donate organs upon death. Structural equation modeling was deployed to estimate simultaneously the relative influence of cognitive and noncognitive variables on willingness to donate deceased organs. The cognitive factors of donation perception, socioeconomic status and financial incentives, and the noncognitive factors of demography and fear showed a high statistically significant (1%) relationship with willingness to donate organs after death. While financial incentives were significant, cash rewards showed the least impact. Donation perception showed the highest impact, which shows that the development of effective pedagogic programs with simultaneous improvements to the quality of services provided by medical personnel engaged in retrieving and transplanting deceased donor organs can help raise organ donation rates.
For the first time, OPTN/SRTR has undertaken to publish global transplant rates as part of its Annual Data Report. Understanding why rates vary from country to country may lead to a better understanding of how to improve access to transplant everywhere. Availability of information varies substantially from country to country, and how complete and accurate the data are is difficult to ascertain. For Canada, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom, data were supplied at SRTR request from well-known registries. For many other countries, SRTR was unable to obtain information, and data from the World Health Organization's Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation were used. Transplant counts and rates vary substantially around the world, likely due to 1) differences in rates of end-organ diseases, 2) economic differences in the ability to provide transplants or other end-organ disease treatment, 3) cultural differences that might support or hinder organ donation and transplant, and 4) reporting differences.