African-Americans’ perceptions of organ donation: ‘simply boils down to mistrust!’

Five focus groups were conducted to better understand African-American adults’ (N = 62) perceptions of organ donation. Applying the health belief model, results revealed that participants generally were aware of the need for organ donors and felt susceptible to needing a transplant in the future. Additionally, the number of perceived barriers greatly outweighed the number of perceived benefits to organ donation. Several novel barriers to organ donation, not currently identified in the literature, arose during focus group discussions, alluding to a larger source of mistrust among African-Americans. In respect to self-efficacy, participants’ responses further delineated the distinction between task and decisional efficacy. The results are discussed with an emphasis on how the current findings compare and contrast with previous work, as well as a focus on the practical implications for targeted organ donation campaigns aimed at African-American communities.