Designing and Evaluating the Campus Organ Donor Project

Abstract

The researchers in this study report on the effectiveness of a health campaign called the Campus Organ Donor Project. The campaign consisted of two parts: a media component and a face-to-face component. The media campaign involved a public service announcement that focused on potential knowledge gaps within the target audience (i.e., college students). The public service announcement took a positive and light approach, using college-aged actors. The face-to-face component involved a presentation that included an organ procurement organization representative and a college-aged member of a donor family. College students exposed to both parts of the campaign reported more knowledge about organ donation and were more likely to sign an organ donor consent form than college students at a different institution who were not exposed to either component of the campaign (who served as the control group).

Keywords:

• Campaigns
• Evaluation
• Organ Donation

Acknowledgments

This project was funded by the Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration Division on Transplantation, Grant #R39OT05406.

Notes

Note. All correlations significant at p = .05.

In order to determine the reach of the media campaign, participants in the experimental group were presented with two additional questions. The first question was “Do you remember seeing on TV or hearing on the radio a commercial concerning organ donation within the past month?” If participants responded “Yes” to the first question, they were then prompted to briefly describe the commercial. Of the 690 participants in the experimental group, 643 (93.18%) responded that they had either seen or heard an organ donor advertisement over the past month. Additionally, the responses of the 643 participants were then coded as either correct or incorrect. It was coded as correct if they included some element that pertained to the specific PSA produced for this project. Typical responses dealt with either the content of the commercial itself or the appearance/behavior of the two actors. The coding was completed by three trained coders who each coded all of the responses. Of the 643 responses that were used, 608 (94.55%) were coded as correct. A portion of the responses (N = 65, 10%) were compared in order to test for intercoder reliability. Results of this comparison indicated that 63 of the 65 (97%) responses were coded consistently between the three coders. These results indicate that more than 88% of our target audience responded that they had seen the PSA and were able to accurately describe it.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Keith Weber

Keith Weber (Ed.D., West Virginia University, 1998) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University.

Matthew M. Martin

Matthew M. Martin (Ph.D., Kent State University, 1992) is a professor and the Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at West Virginia University.