Intervention to Motivate Teens to be a Designated Organ Donor on Driver's License

Less than a fourth of ethnic minority teens in the U.S. are a designated donor (DD) on their state-issued driver's license. Asian-American/Pacific Islander (AA/PI) adolescents in Hawaii are even less likely to be a DD or to have talked to their family about becoming an organ donor. Health education interventions for adolescents have demonstrated improvements in knowledge and intentions to be an organ donor; but, AA/PI teens are underrepresented in such studies. Nevertheless, whether changes in knowledge or intentions result in more organ donors is unclear, since previous studies have not included a concrete behavioral outcome such as the teen becoming a donor on their driver's license. This application will test, via a randomized clinical trial, the efficacy of an Interactive Multimedia Intervention (IMI) to increase the number of AA/PI adolescents who are a DD on their state issued driver's license, identification card, or organ donor card/donor registry. Teen groups will be recruited from the community (churches and high schools, n = 40 groups, 530 teens) and randomly assigned to either the intervention or a comparison condition on prevention of underage drinking of alcohol. The theoretically-derived intervention will include culturally sensitive messages and information about being a designated donor that will be delivered via a DVD, Email, text/instant messaging, and websites. The comparison condition includes materials (DVD) previously shown to increase awareness about laws restricting access to alcohol by teens. The primary outcome is objectively validated donor status on a teens' driver's license/state identification card (ID) or donor card after 12 months of intervention. A secondary outcome is the reported rate of family discussions about organ donation and knowledge/intentions about donation. We hypothesize the youth groups assigned to the intervention will have higher rates for family discussions and DD status, compared to groups in the comparison condition. We will also test whether psychosocial and cultural factors act as mediators of any change in teens' knowledge, attitudes & stages of change to become a DD. After the randomized trial we will disseminate the intervention to Organ Procurement Organizations in Hawaii and other states, and track diffusion outcomes over a year. If IMI methods can increase the number of minority teens who become a DD on their driver's license by 10% this would translate to 500,000 more teenage designated donors in the U.S.

Inclusion criteria

• adolescent aged 14-19
• member of a school club, youth program or teen group
• read and speak English
• parent provides consent

Exclusion criteria

• plans to permanently move out of state