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Psychological aspects of organ donation

Professor Ronan O'Carroll

 
When?
Tuesday 26 February 2013, 16.00 to 17.00
Where?
01AC02
Open to:
Public, Staff, Students
Speaker:
Professor Ronan O'Carroll
Unhealthy lifestyles (e.g. smoking, alcohol intake, high calorie diet and inactivity) are increasingly leading to organ failure. Recent advances in organ transplantation and immunosuppressant medication mean that many more lives can now be saved. However, demand for organs far exceeds supply. For example, in the UK, approximately 90% of the general public approve of organ donation, but only one third have signed up to the UK organ donor register. Reluctance to register appears to be more determined by affective rather than cognitive attitudes. Affective attitudes include fear of doctors harvesting organs before the patient is really dead (medical mistrust), disgust and “jinx” (the idea that one may be tempting fate by signing up). These all clearly distinguish donors from non-donors. My team are engaged in a programme of research that attempts to understand and overcome some of these important barriers. For example, we are currently conducting a series of studies where we attempt to manipulate the emotion of anticipated regret, to test if this increases intention, and confirmed organ donor registration. In this presentation I will present the results of some of these studies.

Professor Ronan O'Carroll
University of Stirling

Ronan O'Carroll is President of the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine and is ex-chair of the British Psychological Society - Division of Health Psychology-Scotland. He has recently been elected as Academician of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.  He is the British Psychological Society Representative on the Executive Committee of Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN) (2009-date). He served on the UK National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) organ transplantation clinical guideline development group (2010-2011).  He is a member of UK National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Health Services Research Grants Board (2011-date) and the UK NIHR Programme Grants Board for Applied Research (2011-date).  He is the elected Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee for the International Congress of Behavioural Medicine (ICBM) 2014, and is a Board Member of the International Society of Behavioural Medicine (ISBM).  He is currently working as Associate Editor of Health Psychology, and the British Journal of Health Psychology. He also serves on the Editorial Boards of Psychology and Health, the British Journal of Clinical Psychology and Journal of Behavioural Medicine.  He is a practising registered Clinical, Health and Neuropsychologist, and has published over 170 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Date:
Tuesday 26 February 2013
Time:

16.00 to 17.00


Where?
01AC02
Open to:
Public, Staff, Students
Speaker:
Professor Ronan O'Carroll