Attitudes towards organ donation in Malta in the last decade

Organ transplantation is possibly one of the few cases when even though the medical professionals have the expertise to carry out transplants of certain organs, and even though a person may have financial resources to cover every possible cost, the treatment can prove impossible to give because of the absence of an organ to transplant. It is for this reason that many countries spend thousands of pounds on promoting organ donation through health campaigns. In this paper the results of four surveys carried out before and after a national campaign for promoting organ donation will be analysed. A quota sample of 400 participants took part in each survey. The results show that, after the campaign, attitudes towards organ donation became more positive and this phenomenon was maintained for 10 years after the campaign.peer-reviewe

The need for increasing the retrieval of organs : doctors’ attitudes towards opting-out

Some countries have introduced the opting-out system of organ donation as a way of increasing the number of available organs for transplants. Public opinion is divided on this issue and so are medical recommendations. While some claim that opting-out is the only way forward to increase the harvesting of organs and transplants, others claim that the decision whether or not to donate the organs of a dead relative should be a voluntary decision taken by the next of kin. In this paper, five doctors who are directly involved in organ donation or transplantation in Malta were interviewed on the issue of the harvesting of organs. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed. The interviewees concur that since the rate of refusals is still low in Malta, the opt-in system which is currently in practice should be retained.peer-reviewe

Social representations of organ donors and non‐donors

This paper illustrates the empirical investigation of social representations by means of photographs as stimulus material and the technique of correspondence analysis to study the resulting data. The research was part of a campaign carried out to promote organ donation in Malta. The study tries to find out whether a public communication campaign could change perceptions. Five focus groups were held before the campaign and another five, two months after the campaign. Part of the data collected through these focus groups was analysed using correspondence analysis. The results showed that before the campaign, donors were generally perceived to be either young persons, important people or public personalities. After the campaign, donors were perceived more to be ordinary family people, educated, generous and religious. On the other hand, non-donors, before the campaign, were seen as conservative people, uncouth and uncaring persons whereas after the campaign non-donors were generally perceived to be older people, uninformed and uneducated.peer-reviewe

Social change, social marketing and social representations

Since Kotler and Zaltman introduced the term social marketing in 1971, much has been written about the subject. One of the first definitions of social marketing was the design, implementation and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution and marketing research (Kotler & Zaltman, 1973, p. 56). The concept has been put into practice and used extensively to change public behaviour and promote social change. Literature reports the effective use of social marketing to promote among many other issues environmental awareness (e.g. Maibach, 1993), sustainable behavior (e.g. McKenzie-Mohr & Smith, 1999), health improvement (Gordon, McDermott, Stead, & Angus, 2006), reduction in alcohol consumption (Rothschild, 2006), condom use and reproductive health (Van Rossem & Meekers, 2007) and breastfeeding (e.g. Lomas, 2009).peer-reviewe

Metaphors of organ donation, social representations of the body and the opt-out system

Organ donation is the only available treatment for end-stage failure of organs such as liver, lung, and heart and therefore increasing the number of organ donors is a priority for most countries. One measure that could be taken by a country to increase the number of organ transplants is to introduce the opt-out system of organ donation. Public opinion is divided on this issue and policy makers need to tread with caution before introducing legislation. This paper proposes that understanding the social representations the public has of organ donation is important in taking the right policy decisions. We propose here that an in-depth study of the views held by people on the issue is essential in this regard and that this can best be done by investigating the metaphors people use to describe organ donation, interpreted within the theory of social representation. In this study, the social representations of organ donation were investigated through five focus groups with 57 participants living in Malta. Analysis of the transcriptions of these focus groups yielded pertinent issues related to organ donation. Moreover, metaphors of organ donations and how these were related to social representations of the body and attitudes towards the opt-out system are discussed. It is being suggested that these findings could be of relevance to the present discussion on the opt-out system in the UK and in other countries.peer-reviewe

The lay person and transplantation

The work I will be presenting in this paper is part of a project carried out by a group of people coming from different disciplines. The aims of the project were four. These were: 1. To create greater awareness of organ donation among the public; 2. To provide information about organ donation; 3. To foster positive attitudes towards organ donation and decrease negative ones, 4. To increase the number of donor card holders. To reach these objectives we decided to launch a nation campaign on organ donation. The campaign was based on the Social Marketing Model proposed by Kotler (Kotler & Roberto, 1989). The formative research carried out before the campaign consisted of a national survey with a quota sample of 400 people, 12 interviews with doctors, donor families and recipients and five focus groups. In this paper I shall only present the results of the survey. I shall also discuss briefly the results of two other surveys carried out after the campaign.peer-reviewe

Doctors’ Attitudes Towards Opting-Out and the Implication of This Legislation for a Small Island State

The debate on whether to introduce the opting-out system is complex and involves various ethical, philosophical, psychological and legal issues. Different answers are given to questions such as “Who owns the body of the dead person? Does the State own the body of the deceased person or does the body belong to the next of kin? Should the decision whether or not to donate the organs of a dead relative be taken by the State? How informed are people about opting-out? If persons are not aware of the system, would the organs still be taken even when relatives are against opting-out?” Because there is no consensus regarding these and other questions, some sections of society and groups may present resistance to introducing the system. On the other hand, doctors’ associations as well as other lobby groups argue that organs should not go to waste and agree with State intervention to retrieve more organs through the introduction of opting-out. The question asked by those in favour of opting-out is “How fair is it for thousands of people to keep on waiting for an organ transplant, when it is possible to reduce these numbers drastically by legislation?” This is the problem facing policy makers. Should the state try to encourage and facilitate a gradual change in public opinion towards opting-out or should legislation on presumed consent be introduced?peer-reviewe

Social representations of religion of Maltese university students

Social representations is a relatively new area of research which is rapidly becoming an important tool in understanding social behavior. In this chapter we will be using this theory to understand how university students in Malta look upon religion. A selfadministered questionnaire was given to a random sample of 650 students at the University of Malta, of which 421 completed the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 35 questions about religious attitudes and behavior, and also included the Post-Critical Belief Scale (Duriez et al., 2005). The data were subjected to statistical analysis. The results were used to identify the different social representations which students had of religion. The implications for understanding how religious beliefs correlate with religious behavior among students in tertiary education will be discussed.peer-reviewe

Are the typologies determined by the post-critical belief scale predicted well by the religious attitudes and behaviour of Maltese undergraduate students?

Religious beliefs play an important role in the study of religious practices and behaviour. Wulff (1997) suggested that there are four basic attitudes towards religion: Literal Affirmation, Literal Disaffirmation, Reductive Interpretation and Restorative Interpretation. Building on this work, Duriez, Soenans and Hutsebaut (2005) constructed the Post-Critical Belief Scale (PCBS). In their work, Duriez at al. conducted a Principal Component Analysis of the responses to this questionnaire. It yielded two factors which partitioned 2-dimensional space into four quadrants corresponding to the four types of beliefs postulated by Wulff (1997). The research question which is addressed in this paper is whether there is an association between scores on the PCBS and religious practices and behaviour in a staunchly Catholic country like Malta where over 95% are baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. This question was addressed by administering a questionnaire to a random sample of 650 students at the University of Malta, of which 421 completed the questionnaire. Of those who answered the questionnaire, 349 were undergraduates. The questionnaire consisted of a number of questions about religious attitudes and behaviour, and also included the PCBS. The analysis of the association between membership of one of the four belief typologies and the participants‟ responses to other questions related to religious beliefs, religious practice and sexual norms was carried out using Discriminant Analysis. The results indicate that, at least in this sample of Maltese university students, these three measures do a reasonably identify membership in three of Wulff's four belief typologies.peer-reviewe

The geographic distribution of big five personality traits - patterns and profiles of human self-description across 56 nations

The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, the BFI was translated from English into 28 languages and administered to 17,837 individuals from 56 nations. The resulting cross-cultural data set was used to address three main questions: Does the factor structure of the English BFI fully replicate across cultures? How valid are the BFI trait profiles of individual nations? And how are personality traits distributed throughout the world? The five-dimensional structure was robust across major regions of the world. Trait levels were related in predictable ways to self-esteem, sociosexuality, and national personality profiles. And people from the geographic regions of South America and East Asia were significantly different in openness from those inhabiting other world regions. The discussion focuses on limitations of the current data set and important directions for future research.peer-reviewe