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Background: One of the major issues in transplantation is to find a strategy to overcome the scarcity of human organs. One of the interventions under investigation is represented by xenotransplantation. The present study aimed to understand the role of psychological factors on people's perception of xenotransplantation. In particular, we tested a condition in which different alternatives (e.g., human vs. pig donors) are presented together allowing people to compare among them (joint evaluation) and two conditions in which people are presented with only one of the two alternatives and cannot compare them (separate evaluation)., Methods: The study was conducted with three different groups of participants: patients waiting for liver transplantation (N = 31 in joint evaluation and N = 30 in each of the two separate evaluation conditions); students (N = 30 in join evaluation and N = 30 in each of the two separate evaluation conditions); and healthy adults (N = 30 in joint evaluation and N = 30 in each of the two separate evaluation conditions). Participants were presented with hypothetical scenarios and asked how good (or bad) were their feelings toward one or two types of donor (e.g., human and pig)., Results: Patients showed a skeptical attitude toward xenotransplantation both when it was evaluated together with the human donor (P < 0.01) or when it was evaluated separately (P < 0.01). Differently, when asked to evaluate each donor separately healthy adults and students showed similar affective reactions toward the two alternatives (human organ and xenograft)., Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that the evaluation context may increase the impact of affective reactions and reduce healthy people's ability to use information on the potential benefit of a novel biomedical technology. Regardless of the evaluation context, patients always rely on affective reactions and show an overall preference for the human organ.

Background: Despite being still at the experimental level, xenotransplantation may become an effective strategy to overcome the scarcity of human organs. However, at the present time there is considerable resistance to this kind of biomedical technology. The aim of the present study was to identify novel strategies to reduce patients' negative affective reactions towards xenotransplantation helping them to understand the advantages of xenotransplantation in a more analytical fashion and increase their acceptance for this approach., Methods: The study was conducted in a group of patients with liver cirrhosis waiting for liver transplantation. They were presented with hypothetical scenarios and asked to choose among either two or three alternative types of donor defined by their species (e.g., livers from humans vs. other species) and availability (low for human donors and high for livers from non-human species)., Results: Patients were unwilling to accept xenotransplantation if they were presented with livers from humans (chosen by 97.5% of participants) vs. livers from genetically modified pigs (2.5%). On the other hand, a different group of patients was significantly more willing to accept xenotransplantation if they were presented with three different types of donors: respectively, human beings (74.4%), genetically modified pigs (25.6%) and genetically modified dogs. In addition, human livers were judged significantly more attractive than genetically modified livers from pigs, monkeys, dogs, or sheep and pig livers were rated as significantly more attractive than livers from monkeys, dogs, or sheep (for all comparisons P < 0.01)., Conclusions: These results demonstrate that paradigms from other fields, like decision-making, might help to communicate more effectively the potential of xenotransplantation, modulating patients' affective reactions and allowing them to understand the potential strengths of this biomedical technology.

Unlabelled: Xenotransplantation is currently at the experimental stages on animal models and many problems still have to be overcome in the biomedical, immunological and ethical fields. Moreover, people's attitudes to xenotransplantation vary: surveys among intensive-care staff have revealed negative opinions, while the general public and students seem to be more positive. Little is known about the influence of schooling and the choice of university faculty on attitudes to xenotransplantation. The aims of this study were: (i) to evaluate university students' attitudes to xenotransplantation; (ii) to investigate any socio-demographic, religious and educational determinants behind students' opinions on xenotransplantation. University undergraduates on five different courses were surveyed at Padua University. A 24-item questionnaire was distributed to students at the end of lectures and completed anonymously immediately after its distribution. No information was given to students beforehand., Statistical Analysis: chi-squared, Pearson's test; P-values <0.05 were considered significant. A total of 585 of 602 (97.2%) students completed the questionnaire (132 males, 453 females, mean age 20.4, range 19 to 43 yr). They were on courses in Medicine (33.85%), Agriculture (5.98%), Veterinary Medicine (11.45%), Psychology (18.46%) and Educational Sciences (30.26%). As for their previous schooling, they came from classical or scientific high school (58.3%), technical college (14.7%), language college (6.3%), teacher training college (11.9%) or others (8.8%). Concerning their religious beliefs, 83% were Catholics, and 56.2% defined themselves as practising Catholics. Eighty-eight percentage of the students knew of the possibility of animal organs being transplanted into humans and 77.9% of them approved of this idea. When grouped according to gender and education, a higher proportion of students approving of xenotransplantation were male (P = 0.017) and had attended classical or scientific high school (P = 0.011). Disapproval for moral, ethical or religious reasons was higher among practising than among non-practising Catholics; the latter rejected xenotransplantation more for immunological and infectious reasons (P = 0.014). As for the type of university course, a higher proportion of students approving of xenotransplantation attended science courses (Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture and Medicine vs. Educational Sciences and Psychology) (P = 0.013). University students generally approved of xenotransplantation. Male gender and a high-school education were associated with a greater acceptance of xenotransplantation. Practising vs. non-practising Catholics reported significantly different reasons for any disapproval of xenotransplantation. The choice of a science rather than an arts faculty at university was more strongly associated with a positive opinion on xenotransplantation.