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Family discussion of organ donation has been found to double rates of family consent regarding organ donation. Therefore, family discussion is an important communication process to study in the effort to get more people to become organ donors. This investigation concerns the willingness to communicate about organ donation and its relationship to other variables and processes related to family discussion of organ donation. Previous research on willingness to communicate examined the antecedent variables of knowledge, attitude toward organ donation, and altruism. This research found that being willing to communicate about organ donation with one's family is related to prior thought and intent to sign an organ donor card, to perceiving organ donation messages as credible, and to feeling relatively low anxiety after reading organ donation messages. One week after being presented with the messages, willingness to communicate was found to be positively associated with worrying about the lack of donors, engaging in family discussion about organ donation, and having an organ donor card witnessed. It was negatively related to feeling personally uneasy about organ donation during the past week.

Family knowledge of organ donation intentions has been found to double rates of family consent regarding organ donation; therefore, it is an important communication process to study in the effort to persuade more people to become organ donors. This article reports the results of a study based on the heuristic-systematic model of persuasion designed to assess predictors of family discussion of organ donation and getting organ donor cards witnessed. Possible predictors of family discussion and getting organ donor cards witnessed included individual differences and cognitive, emotional, and behavioral factors. A path model of the process leading to family discussion and getting organ donor cards witnessed is presented and results are discussed for their practical importance.

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