Problem statement
Your task is to design a research project to investigate the barriers to organ donation amongst a specific population (your choice) of Australian residents.
The rate of organ donation is very low in Australia. The rate is relatively low when compared to other developed nations (Bramstedt, 2013). Australia stands 17th in term of organ donation and there are currently 16.9 donors per million populations, indicating insufficient organs to meet the demand (ShareLife, 2018). There are not enough suitable organs for transplantations. There are more number of people risking their life by buying the organ in black market. There is less number of studies focused on the barriers to organ donation and factors contributing to the low rate of the organ donation (Pilcher et al., 2015). The area needs significant improvement and investigating the cause of low rate of organ donation is crucial.
The aim of the research is to investigate whether professionals in the medical and dental field show low rate of organ donation.
- To investigate the perceptions and attitudes that dental and medical professionals hold about organ donation
- To evaluate the knowledge that these professionals have about organ donation
- To assess their awareness regarding organ donation acts and practices
- To investigate their willingness to participate in organ donation activities
A study investigated the reason behind shortage of transplantation of kidneys in Australia. The findings suggested that the number of individuals on dialysis in Australia has increased by more than 6% annually. This growth was attributed to lower rates of kidney transplantation that occurred due to shortage of kidney donors. The average wait among most Australians for kidney retrieval from deceased donor was found to be an estimated 4 years, in addition to the possibility of never obtaining a kidney. Furthermore, the article also elaborated on the fact that annual rate of dead kidney transplant donors was approximately 11 per million in Australia (Mja.com.au, 2005). Upon investigating the outcome of overseas kidney transplantation in Australia, another article found that organ trafficking was considered illegal under all laws within Australia. The findings presented suggest that patients capable of paying and estimated US$70 000 or more opted for renal allograft in overseas location. The long waiting time for organ transplantation in New South Wales was cited as one primary reason for travelling overseas (Kennedy et al., 2005). Findings from a pilot study suggested that of the medical, nursing and dentistry students, 65.5% displayed a willingness, and 25.5% were not hesitant to donate their organs. Furthermore, 9% of the students were not willing to donate organs and signed cards were carried by 6% of the sample. Illegal behaviours were cited as the major reason for unwillingness to donate organs (Goz, Goz & Erkan, 2006). Upon conducting a study to determine the factual knowledge on organ donation, 74.6% mean correct answers were obtained. The knowledge was associated with presence or donor cards, attitudes and religious beliefs (Horton & Horton, 1990).
Research aims
The research will be based on a qualitative approach and will primarily be explorative in its nature. It will intend to gain an insight into the problems and the barriers that reduce the willingness to become a part of organ donation practices. Efforts will be taken to collect non-numerical data with the help of descriptive analysis (Berger, 2015). The research design for investigating the barriers to organ donation involves focus group and interview method. Interview method is the verbal conversation with the participants to explore their experiences, views, and opinions. Focus group is also a qualitative interview method, in which group of people are asked about the research question (Lewis, 2015). These two methods would help in gaining an in-depth understanding of the phenomena, within a natural setting.
The sample size for the interview will be composed of 10 participants. The interview will be conducted for 45 minutes for each respondent. A random sampling method will be adopted for participants. The data collection method includes semi-structured interview with open ended questions asked individually. The data will be analysed by recording the answers and comparing the viewpoints (Lewis, 2015).
15 participants will be enrolled in the focus group the participants and the data collection would include specific questions about organ donation and barriers. The questions would be asked in group and qualitative data will be generated. Group discussion will be initiated by moderator. Verbatim transcription of the responses would be followed by data analysis, facilitated by thematic analysis of the main findings (Lewis, 2015).
The sample size is comparatively small owing to the fact that there exists sensitivity and disgust towards donation of organs among medical and nursing students. This might create an impact on the reliability of the results, and lead to bias.
This is one of the most common data collection format for qualitative research and can be defined as procedures that involves a conversation encompassing questions that help in eliciting essential information. The interviewers are generally paid researchers or professionals who pose a set of questions to the target group. Some advantages of this data collection method can be attributed to the fact that they are more personal research forms that questionnaires and involve a direct interaction with the interviewee (Robinson, 2014). This directly reduces chances of conflicts. Interviews also facilitate investigation of an issue in depth, and provide a clear insight into how the interviewees feel or think about the topic of interest. Collection of interview responses facilitate informed decision making, resource allocation and strategic planning. Moreover, a human dimension gets added to personal data.
Research objective
Some limitations are that interviews are time consuming and require several resources for the easy conduction. Furthermore, setting up an interview, transcribing the responses verbatim, analysing the responses and giving a feedback (Jamshed, 2014). In addition, presence of more than two interviewers might make them transcribe the responses in different ways, leading to clash.
These refer to demographically small diverse group of individuals, the reactions of whom are studies during political analysis or market research, via open discussions (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013). This qualitative research method also comprises of interviews where some people are inquired about their perceptions, beliefs, opinions, and attitudes towards some concept, service, or idea. The questions are generally asked in interactive setting that allows the participants to freely voice their opinions. The responses and vital points are noted down or recorded by the researchers (Doody, Slevin & Taggart, 2013). Major advantages of focus group are that they help in obtaining detailed information about group feelings, opinions and perceptions, thereby saving money, time and resources, compared to individual interviews.
Irrelevant discussion and disagreements might distract the researcher from the research focus and the responses can often become difficult to analyse or manage. Participants might also find it intimidating to participate in such focus groups (Fusch & Ness, 2015).
Conclusion
Thus, it can be stated that conduction of focus group sessions would be the best approach for this qualitative research that would facilitate collection of relevant data regarding the perceptions and feelings of medical and dental professionals regarding their willingness towards organ donation practices. This would directly help in meeting the research objectives of investigating the potential barriers that prevent them from becoming organ donors
References
Berger, R. (2015). Now I see it, now I don’t: Researcher’s position and reflexivity in qualitative research. Qualitative research, 15(2), 219-234. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794112468475
Bramstedt, K. A. (2013). Family refusals of registered consents: the disruption of organ donation by double?standard surrogate decision?making. Internal medicine journal, 43(2), 120-123. https://doi.org/10.1111/imj.12029
Doody, O., Slevin, E., & Taggart, L. (2013). Focus group interviews in nursing research: part 1. British Journal of Nursing, 22(1), 16-19. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2013.22.1.16
Fusch, P. I., & Ness, L. R. (2015). Are we there yet? Data saturation in qualitative research. The qualitative report, 20(9), 1408-1416. 6. Retrieved from- https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol20/iss9/3
Goz, F., Goz, M., & Erkan, M. (2006). Knowledge and attitudes of medical, nursing, dentistry and health technician students towards organ donation: a pilot study. Journal of clinical nursing, 15(11), 1371-1375. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2006.01431.x
Horton, R. L., & Horton, P. J. (1990). Knowledge regarding organ donation: Identifying and overcoming barriers to organ donation. Social science & medicine, 31(7), 791-800.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(90)90174-Q
Jamshed, S. (2014). Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation. Journal of basic and clinical pharmacy, 5(4), 87. Retrieved from- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4194943/
Kennedy, S. E., Shen, Y., Charlesworth, J. A., Mackie, J. D., Mahony, J. D., Kelly, J. J., & Pussell, B. A. (2005). Outcome of overseas commercial kidney transplantation: an Australian perspective. Medical Journal of Australia, 183(1), 54. Retrieved from- https://www.mja.com.au/system/files/issues/182_05_070305/ken10034_fm.pdf
Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), 473-475. DOI: 10.1177/1524839915580941
Mja.com.au. (2005). The shortage of kidneys for transplantation in Australia. The Medical Journal of Australia, 182(5), 204-206. Retrieved from- https://www.mja.com.au/system/files/issues/182_05_070305/mat10002_fm.pdf
Robinson, O. C. (2014). Sampling in interview-based qualitative research: A theoretical and practical guide. Qualitative research in psychology, 11(1), 25-41. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2013.801543
Savin-Baden, M., & Major, C. H. (2013). Qualitative research: The essential guide to theory and practice. Retrieved from- https://smlne5wsj06.storage.googleapis.com/MDQxNTY3NDc4Ng==06.pdf
ShareLife. (2018). Australian Organ Donation Global Comparison. Retrieved from https://www.sharelife.org.au/australian-organ-donation-comparison
Tumin, M., Tafran, K., Tang, L. Y., Chong, M. C., Jaafar, N. I. M., Satar, N. M., & Abdullah, N. (2016). Factors associated with medical and nursing students’ willingness to donate organs. Medicine, 95(12). doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000003178
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