Funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre based at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust University of Oxford Oxford Biomedical Research Centre FellowshipPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Andrews

Barr

Cragg Ross Dawson

Dixon-Woods

Gaskell

Haddow

Haimes

Hoeyer

Kanellopoulou

Kaye

Laurie

Lenk

Lipworth

Locock

Manson

Mauss

Medical Research Council

Nuffield Council on Bioethics

OECD

People Science and Policy Ltd

Primary Care Reports

Scheper-Hughes

Seale

Solbakk

Titmuss

Tutton

Waldby

Walsh

Widdows

Health Expectations

English

PubMed

Background
In the UK, altruism has featured explicitly as an underpinning principle for biobanking. However, conceptualizing donation as altruistic downplays the role of reciprocity and personal or family benefit.

Objective
To investigate how biosample donors talk about their donation and whether they regard samples as ‘gifts’.

Methods
In this qualitative study, 21 people, both healthy volunteers and people with health conditions, who had been invited to give biosamples took part in semi-structured narrative interviews. The data were transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed.

Results
The term ‘gift’ was considered appropriate by some, but it also evoked puzzlement, especially in relation to ‘waste’ material (e.g. urine or tumour samples). Whilst ‘giving’ or ‘donating’ were commonly mentioned, the noun ‘gift’ signified something more special and deliberate. Analysis suggested biosamples could be interpreted as gifts in several different ways, including unreserved gift; reciprocal gift; collective gift; unwanted/low-value gift; and gift as an exaggeration.

Discussion and conclusions
Although people describe a network of exchange consistent with anthropological understandings of gift relationships, lay (and biomedical) understandings of the term ‘gift’ may differ from anthropological definitions. For donors (and researchers), value is attached to the information derived from the sample, rather than the sample itself. Consequently, when asking people for biosamples, we should avoid using the term ‘gift’. Acknowledging the value of participation and the information the sample holds may mean more to potential donors

Locock, Louise

Boylan, Anne-Marie

Oxford University Research Archive

Biosamples as gifts? How participants in biobanking projects talk about donation

Louise Locock

Anne-Marie R. Boylan

Crossref

Funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre based at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust University of Oxford Oxford Biomedical Research Centre FellowshipPeer reviewe

Aberdeen University Research

Biosamples as gifts? How participants in biobanking projects talk about donation.

https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/9398/1/Locock_et_al_2016_Health_Expectations.pdf

Biosamples as gifts? How participants in biobanking projects talk about donation.

Abstract

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Oxford University Research Archive

Crossref

Aberdeen University Research