PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ORGAN AND TISSUE DONATION Proceedings XXI National Congress Italian Psychological Association, Clinical and Dynamic Section, Milan-27-29 September 2019, SYMPOSIUM SESSION

The donation of human organ and tissues is a prosocial behavior which is particularly relevant for our society. Although these kinds of donation usually do not entail financial costs nor painful procedures for the donors, adequate supplies to meet the demand for these materials are rarely achieved by national health systems and this calls for more research aimed at targeting the best behavioral intervention for promoting donation. One problematic regards the proportion of eligible donors which are usually a small proportion of the general population. Apart from that, a big role seems to be played by the lack of information provided to the potential donors, the uneasiness of the procedures that have to be followed, the presence/absence of a personal reward that can be obtained (e.g., money, free blood test), the possibility to save the tissue for oneself or in-kinds. Besides these aspects, little is known about the psychological determinants of these kinds of behavior, especially in new kind of donations. Importantly, very little is known about the psychological determinants of these kinds of behavior, thus, the major goal of this panel is to explore what are the determinants and the main fears that characterizes tissue/ organ donors and to discuss potential intervention for promotion. With this regard, the first contribution from the University of Bologna will present a psychoeducational intervention directed towards high school students and aimed at promoting tissue/organ donation. A second contribution from the of Milano – Bicocca will investigate the role of needles phobia in blood donors and non donors. A third contribution from Sapienza University of Rome will show experimental data regarding the effect of social distance on altruism in new-mothers who might or not have donated the umbilical cord blood.