Poster - #VH-55474 - Keywords: organ donation, television, social media

Using Youth Participatory Action Research to Investigate Reactions to Organ Donation Storylines on YouTube

Ore Fawole, Tyler Feth, Andrew Elinoff, Kenna Campbell, BSPH, Piper Narendorf, Amanda Lucas, Beth L. Hoffman, PhD, MPH
University of Pittsburgh

ABSTRACT:
Background: Over 100,000 people in the US are waiting for an organ transplant. While 95% of Americans support organ donation only 58% are registered donors. This gap is likely due to misconceptions—such as fears that being a donor may negatively impact care. Survey research has found that medical TV shows can influence viewer perceptions of organ donation, but research has yet to examine this in the context of TV clips being shared on social media. Because youth are presented with the choice to become organ donors when they receive a driver’s license and are heavy social media consumers, this is a vital population to engage in research about this topic. We used a youth participatory action research (YPAR) approach to analyze discussions about organ donation videos from medical dramas on YouTube. Methods: Two high school students participating in the University of Pittsburgh’s Public Health Science Academy (PHSA) surveyed PHSA participants as to their favorite medical TV shows. The students searched YouTube with the shows mentioned in the survey alongside the term “organ donation” and identified nine organ donation YouTube videos from three medical dramas (Chicago Med, The Good Doctor, House M.D.). We extracted all comments and replies from the videos and developed a codebook using a grounded theory approach. Comments were sorted by the number of likes; the codebook was used to conduct a qualitative content analysis of the top 20 relevant comments and associated replies for each video. Results: After three rounds of double-coding 50 comments/replies (hereafter referred to as comments) Cohen’s k>0.7 for all coding categories; the remaining were single-coded. Of 1,273 comments, 20% (n=1250) were relevant to organ donation. Of these, 24% (n=59) provided information about organ donation; sometimes this information was incorrect. Approximately 15% (n=38) indicated disapproval of the TV physician’s behavior. Other themes included personal anecdotes (10%, n=25) and questioning legality (10%, n=25) of the TV physician’s behavior. Discussion: The use of YPAR to examine YouTube comments related to organ donation storylines on TV is feasible and may offer a unique avenue through which to understand the information that potential organ donors are exposed to in the media. Future research could use a YPAR approach to develop interventions that bridge perspectives between researchers and youth to help address the shortage of registered organ donors in the US.