Online responses to motivational interview questions enhance blood donation intention

Abstract

BACKGROUND A motivational interview may promote blood donor retention, but live interviews can be costly. To address this challenge, we conducted two studies to examine the impact of online delivery of motivational interview content on donation intention. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS In Study 1, a total of 3883 respondents (52.2% female; mean ± SD age, 35.69 ± 11.3 years) completed a donation commitment measure and were randomly assigned to one of seven motivational interview–based questions or a no‐question control group. In Study 2, a total of 2246 respondents (58.4% female; mean ± SD age, 35.5 ± 11.4 years) with a moderate level of donation commitment were randomly assigned to receive zero to four motivational interview–based questions. In both studies, future donation intention was measured immediately after the intervention. RESULTS The first study revealed a significant effect of interview question on donation intention among participants with moderate blood donation commitment (F(7,1299) = 3.699, p = 0.001), but not among those with low or high commitment (F(7,1233) = 1.411, p = 0.20; and F(7,1327) = 0.964, p = 0.46, respectively). Study 2 replicated the significant effect of interview questions on donation intention (F(1,2230) = 2.168, p = 0.006). Relative to the no‐question control condition, follow‐up analyses revealed significantly higher donation intentions with 14 of the 15 question combinations (p ≤ 0.05). CONCLUSION These findings provide initial support that online survey questions modeled on motivational interview content may elicit personal reflections that enhance donation intention, particularly among individuals with a moderate level of donation commitment.

An automated motivational interview promotes donation intention and self‐efficacy among experienced whole blood donors

“…Thus, one simple step to enhance completion may be to reduce the number of questions asked. Indeed, we recently demonstrated that it is possible to promote donation intention using as few as one to three motivational interview questions . On a deeper level, the automated interview is currently technically limited in terms of the degree to which it can be conducted in a manner consistent with the process and spirit of motivational interviewing .…”

Emotional mechanisms and format effects of motivational questions for blood donation

“…For both studies, participants enrolled using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace where participants complete small tasks (eg, surveys) for monetary compensation. This method has been used previously in blood donor motivation research 8,[16][17][18] and has been shown to be a timeefficient method to gather reliable and valid data, 19 particularly when the design includes items to screen for attention and consistency of responses. 20 In the present studies, participants were only able to view and respond to the survey if their computer had an IP address located within the United States.…”

“…7 In another set of studies, individuals moderately committed to donating blood reported higher donation intention after answering one or more motivational interview questions relative to not answering any questions. 8 These questions included asking individuals to reflect on (a) how they would feel if they did or did not donate blood; (b) the best or worst thing that could happen if they did or did not donate blood, respectively; (c) how donating blood aligned with their values; and/or (d) their confidence in being able to donate blood. The research reported herein entails further study of these motivational questions.…”

“…Before implementing online motivational interviewing as a recruitment or retention tool, it is important to ascertain the methodologic parameters under which these questions function most effectively. Although the present research examined all four questions used in the aforementioned study 8 to establish reproducibility, we focused primarily on two of the questions, each comprising two parts: how donors would feel if they did donate blood and, separately, if they did not donate blood (Study 1) and the best thing that would happen if donors did donate and, separately, the worst thing that would happen if they did not (Study 2).…”

“…In sum, this report describes two studies designed to replicate and extend prior work in two respects. First, using questions previously documented to produce higher donation intention, 8 we explored the potential influence of asking one vs both parts of these questions as well as order of administration. Second, we examined respondents' expected positive emotional reaction to donating (ie, anticipated warm glow) and expected negative emotional reaction to not donating (ie, anticipated regret) as potential mediators of the effect of the questions on donation intention.…”