Leading the flock: organ donation feelings, beliefs, and intentions among African American clergy and community residents.

CONTEXT: Despite a considerable potential role in organ donation for African American clergy, there has been little investigation to date of the beliefs, attitudes, and personal intentions of such clergy regarding donation.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions regarding organ donation among African American clergy to those of African American residents of the same large US city.

DESIGN: Focus groups and 3 cross-sectional surveys.

SETTING: Greater Houston, Tex, metropolitan area.

PARTICIPANTS: A total of 761 randomly selected African American community residents and 311 African American clergy.

MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURES: Beliefs about the importance of organ donation; how comfortable one is in thinking about donation; whether one believes that organ donation is against one's religion; trust in healthcare professionals regarding death declaration; concerns that donation leads to body mutilation; and the likelihood that one will donate one's own organs upon death.

RESULTS: Compared to general African American residents, African American clergy in the Houston area were found more often to believe in the importance of donation; to be more comfortable with thinking about donation; to feel more certain that donation was not against their religion; to believe that they could trust healthcare professionals regarding death declaration; to feel less often that donation leads to mutilation of the body; and to indicate a greater likelihood of donating their own organs upon death. The same was found to be true among clergy and congregants of the largest religious denomination in Houston, the Baptists.