The public's willingness to discuss their preference for organ donation with family members

We sought to assess the public's willingness to discuss their preference fo r organ donation with family members and to identify factors associated wit h willingness to discuss donation. We categorized individuals (N = 4365) wi th a preference for donation according to their willingness to discuss dona tion and used ordinal logistic regression analysis to identify factors rela ted to their level of willingness. About half of those who want to donate h ave discussed this with a family member. Others were at various stages with respect to their commitment to discuss donation. Those in the more committ ed stages were more likely than others to have signed an organ donor card, to have seen information about organ donation, to be male, to be white or H ispanic, to know about donation issues, and to be comfortable with the idea of their own death. The decision to donate is ultimately made by family me mbers of a suitable candidate for donation, yet nearly half of those who wi sh to donate have not made their wishes known. Interventions targeted to in dividuals at different stages of commitment are needed so that more family members can respond in accordance with their loved one's wishes.