A theory-driven organ donation campaign: a field intervention among university students in Iran.

Abstract

Background: This study conducted an empirical evaluation of an intervention derived from the theory of planned behavior (TPB) aimed at implementing a health campaign among medical students at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

Methods: In this interventional study, a valid and reliable TPB-based questionnaire was administered before launching a health campaign titled "Organ Donation=Life Donation" among 260 medical students. The campaign was structured around nine steps: situation analysis, goal identification, target audience identification, strategy development, tactics establishment, media selection, timetable creation, budget planning, and program evaluation. Two months after the campaign, participants completed a posttest and were offered an organ donation card. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS ver. 16, employing descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) and tests such as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the paired-samples t-test.

Results: All participants adopted more prodonation stances across all constructs measured, both immediately and 2 months after exposure to the health campaign, compared to their pretest scores. These results indicate that the health campaign had a significant impact on psychological variables such as attitudes (P<0.001), subjective norms (P<0.001), and perceived behavioral control (P<0.038), as well as on the actual acceptance of an organ donor card.

Conclusions: Effective health education and promotion interventions, including health campaigns, are essential to encourage the use of organ donation cards. Additionally, current experiences indicate that the TPB serves as a suitable theoretical framework for designing organ donation interventions.