Don't Throw Your Heart Away: Layperson Study 1

NCT04133831 | Completed Results

• 3 other identifiers: 1 F30 HL152526-01-A20PRE351204921F30HL152526-01
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 1,019
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Publicly available outcome assessments for transplant programs do not make salient that some programs tend to reject many of the hearts they are offered, whereas other programs accept a broader range of donor offers. The investigators use empirical studies to test whether transplant center performance data (i.e. transplant and waitlist outcome statistics) that reflect center donor acceptance rates influence laypersons to evaluate centers with high organ decline rates less favorably than centers with low organ decline rates. 1000 lay participants will be recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and randomized to one of five different information presentation conditions. Participants will be given an introduction to the donor organ match process, then asked to view the table of transplant outcomes corresponding to the condition they were randomized to. Each participant is asked to choose between two hospitals: one hospital with an non-selective, "accepting" strategy (takes all donor heart offers), and one hospital with a more selective, "cherrypicking" strategy (tends to reject donor offers that are less than "excellent" quality).

Conditions

Cardiac Transplant Disorder

Keywords

Heart Transplant; Transplant Survival; Applied Ethics; Decision Psychology; Human Behavior

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Hospital Choice

  The outcome variable will be a measure of binary choice between two hospitals: one with a selective donor-heart acceptance strategy and one with a non-selective donor heart acceptance strategy. Participants will respond to the question "Which Hospital is a better choice for patients? Please click on one of the two tables below to indicate which hospital is the better choice." Participants will choose been two outcome tables featuring the selective and non-selective hospital (counterbalanced, such that each of the two choices is equally likely to be presented at top of the choice scenario in each condition). The number of participants that choose each hospital will be the measured outcome variable used in analyses.

  1 day

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Mediator of Hospital Choice

  1 day

Study Arms (5)

Condition 1: Combined only

NO INTERVENTION

Participants randomized to baseline (control) arm Condition 1 will view only combined transplant survival outcome information (e.g. transplant survival rate not stratified by number and quality of donor hearts accepted at each center) when making a choice between the two hospitals.

Condition 2: Combined plus Total

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants randomized to Condition 2 will view combined transplant survival and total survival outcome information when making a choice between the two hospitals.

Other: Total Survival

Condition 3: Stratified only

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants randomized to Condition 3 will view only stratified transplant survival outcome information when making a choice between the two hospitals.

Other: Stratified Transplant Survival

Condition 4: Stratified plus Total

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants randomized to Condition 4 will view stratified transplant survival and total survival outcome information when making a choice between the two hospitals.

Other: Total Survival; Other: Stratified Transplant Survival

Condition 5: Total only

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants randomized to Condition 5 will view only total survival outcome information when making a choice between the two hospitals.

Other: Total Survival

Interventions

Total Survival OTHER

The overall or "total" survival rate at each center is displayed in the table of outcome statistics. Total survival is computed from survival rates of both transplant and waitlist patients: \[(number of patients surviving after transplant at end of year + number of patients alive on waitlist at end of year)\] / \[number of patients alive on waitlist at start of year\].

Condition 2: Combined plus Total; Condition 4: Stratified plus Total; Condition 5: Total only

Stratified Transplant Survival OTHER

The transplant survival rate in the table of outcome statistics is stratified into two groups: (i) patients who received excellent donor organs and (ii) patients who received less than optimal donor organs. Stratified transplant survival is computed from survival rates of transplant patients who received each quality category of organ. excellent transplant survival = \[number of patients surviving after transplant with excellent organ\]/\[number of patients for whom excellent organ was accepted for transplant\] marginal transplant survival = \[number of patients surviving after transplant with marginal organ\]/\[number of patients for whom marginal organ was accepted for transplant\]

Condition 3: Stratified only; Condition 4: Stratified plus Total

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• years of age or older
• must read and understand the information in the consent form
• must want to participate in the research and continue with the survey
• must live in United States

You may not qualify if:

• Participants on mTurk will not be allowed to participate if they fail to pass the initial "bot screening", a multiple-choice question that asks, "What phone number should you dial when there is an emergency?" The obvious correct response in this screening question is "911", so participants who select one of the incorrect responses (i.e. "1-800-ANTIBOT", "1-877-MTURKER", "123") are filtered out and not allowed to complete the survey.
• Participants on mTurk will be allowed to participate, but excluded from data analysis, if they submit a nonsense response to the free-response question which reads, "In your own words, why do you think patients should choose the hospital you picked?" This question takes place after the participant has viewed the choice stimuli and selected their response. If participants input nonsense in the text response box, they will be permitted to complete the survey and paid, but filtered out from the data analysis.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Carnegie Mellon University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213, United States

Location

Limitations and Caveats

Selection bias or underrepresentation of certain groups due to online worker platform.

Results Point of Contact

• Title: Gretchen Chapman
• Organization: Carnegie Mellon University

gchapman@andrew.cmu.edu

412-268-3665

Study Officials

• Alison E Butler, BS

  Carnegie Mellon University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Publication Agreements

• PI is Sponsor Employee: No
• Restrictive Agreement: No

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: FACTORIAL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: October 18, 2019
• First Posted: October 21, 2019
• Study Start: November 15, 2019
• Primary Completion: April 30, 2020
• Study Completion: April 30, 2020
• Last Updated: April 23, 2026
• Results First Posted: October 29, 2024

Record last verified: 2026-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will share
• Shared Documents: STUDY PROTOCOL, SAP, ICF, ANALYTIC CODE
• Time Frame: All of the raw files, statistical analysis protocol descriptions, and information for proper analysis will be available for download a minimum of 1 year, and a maximum of 3 years, after publication of the corresponding manuscripts.

Locations

US (1)