Background

Whole body donation (WBD) is fundamental to anatomical education and research because human dissection provides an educational tool for training healthcare professionals. Investigation into the demographics and rationale of whole body donors can provide insight on who donates their bodies to science. Literature reports a typical donor who is a 60 to 70-year-old, white, married, educated man with the reason for donating to be altruism. Because there are no studies in the United States (US) about the rationale of WBD in correlation with the donor characteristics, this study seeks to accomplish two aims: (1) analyze the demographics of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s (UMMC) current donor registrants and (2) analyze their reasons for donation.

Methods

Data from authorization forms from living preregistered donors were analyzed. A survey was sent to registrants who filled out these forms between 2017 and 2019 about their reasons for body donation.

Results

UMMC has an average donor registrant population consisting of 69-year-old white (95.2%), females (56.5%) who acquired a college degree (24.9%) and are in good health at the time of donation (50.8%). Males and females differed in their marital status (p = 0.001), with more married males (67.2%) than females (46.2%) donating their bodies to science. Seven hundred eighty-one registrants completed the survey (56.3% response rate, n = 1,387). Their primary and secondary reasons for donation were furthering medical education/research (57.4%) and giving their body purpose after life (49.2%), respectively. In addition, thematic analysis of 62 donor rationale statements revealed that the majority of registrants wanted to donate their bodies for the purpose of being useful.

Conclusions

These results indicate that UMMC’s current registrant demographic data deviates from what is presented in the literature. The study also found that the main reason for donation for this registrant population was altruism with the purpose of being useful. Information from this study adds current US data to the published literature on WBD.

中文翻译：

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密西西比州的全身捐献者：捐献者人口统计及其捐赠理由分析

背景

全身捐赠 (WBD) 是解剖学教育和研究的基础，因为人体解剖为培训医疗保健专业人员提供了一种教育工具。对全身捐献者的人口统计和基本原理的调查可以深入了解谁将他们的身体捐献给科学。文献报道了一个典型的捐赠者，他是一个 60 到 70 岁的白人、已婚、受过教育的男性，捐赠的原因是利他主义。由于美国 (US) 没有关于 WBD 与供体特征相关性的基本原理的研究，因此本研究旨在实现两个目标：(1) 分析密西西比大学医学中心 (UMMC) 当前供体的人口统计数据（2）分析捐赠原因。

方法

分析了来自活体预注册捐赠者的授权表格的数据。向在 2017 年至 2019 年期间填写这些表格的注册者发送了一份关于他们捐赠尸体原因的调查。

结果

UMMC 的平均捐赠者注册人口由 69 岁的白人 (95.2%)、获得大学学位的女性 (56.5%) (24.9%) 和捐赠时身体健康 (50.8%) 组成。男性和女性的婚姻状况存在差异 (p = 0.001)，已婚男性 (67.2%) 比女性 (46.2%) 将身体捐献给科学。781 名注册者完成了调查（响应率为 56.3%，n = 1,387）。他们捐赠的主要和次要原因分别是促进医学教育/研究 (57.4%) 和赋予他们生命后的身体目标 (49.2%)。此外，对 62 份捐赠者理由陈述的专题分析表明，大多数注册者希望捐赠他们的身体是为了有用。

结论

这些结果表明 UMMC 当前的注册人人口统计数据与文献中提供的数据有所不同。该研究还发现，该注册人群捐赠的主要原因是利他主义，目的是有用。这项研究的信息将当前的美国数据添加到已发表的 WBD 文献中。