Implementation of an interactive organ donation education program for Dutch lower-educated students: a process evaluation

BACKGROUND: As organ donation registration rates remain low, especially among lower-educated people, it is important to support this group in making their registration decision. To prepare lower-educated students in the Netherlands for making a well-informed decision, an interactive educational program was developed. We aim to understand both the (quality of) implementation as well as to contextualize the effects of this program in a lower-educated school setting. METHODS: The process evaluation was part of a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial, in which 11 schools for Intermediate Vocational Education throughout the Netherlands participated. Teachers who taught a course on Citizenship delivered three intervention elements (i.e. video fragments and discussion, quizzes with tailored feedback and an exercise filling out a registration form) to their students. Implementation was assessed by interviews with teachers, questionnaires from students, logbooks from teachers and user data from Google Analytics. RESULTS: The program was well received and implemented, but on-the-spot adaptations were made by teachers to fit their students better. Within the lower-educated target group, differences between students are high in terms of active participation, reading abilities, knowledge and attention span. The program fit well within their regular teaching activities, but the topic of organ donation is not always prioritized by teachers. CONCLUSIONS: We see opportunities to disseminate the program on a larger scale and reach a group that has been neglected in organ donation education before. Within the program, there are possibilities to increase the effectiveness of the program, such as alternative delivery methods for the elements with a lot of text, the addition of booster sessions and guidelines for teachers to adapt the program to students of different levels within Intermediate Vocational Education. Moreover, in order to have an impact on a national level, strategies need to be employed to reach high numbers of students and, therefore, support on a higher level is needed (both within schools and at policy level). TRIAL REGISTRATION: Dutch Trial Register, NTR6771. Prospectively registered on 24 October 2017.