Beresford Matthew, Wong Katie, Al-Talib Mohammed, Bailey Pippa K
Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Department of Nephrology, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Gloucester, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2025 Jun 4;20(6):e0325665. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0325665. eCollection 2025.
The views of UK Chinese people towards transplantation and organ donation are not known. It is not known whether the perspectives of Chinese people living in the UK differ from those of Chinese people living elsewhere in the world, or whether perspectives of UK Chinese people vary according to time spent living in the UK. This qualitative interview study aimed to investigate the views of UK Chinese individuals towards kidney donation and transplantation. It formed part of a convergent parallel mixed-methods programme of research alongside a quantitative registry study which found that UK Chinese individuals experience poorer access to living-donor kidney transplantation compared to UK White individuals. We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with sixteen participants across three UK cities. Participants were permanently resident in the UK and self-identified as UK Chinese. Interviews were conducted between 9th April 2020 and 16th July 2020. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded using NVivo software, and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Three main themes and seven sub-themes were identified: (1) Importance of kinship: biological and social (i) Familism, ii) Relationship hierarchy, iii) Matching; (2) Donor sacrifice (i) Negative impact on donors, ii) Bodily integrity after death; and (3) Patient as information gatekeeper (i) Culture of silence, ii) A perceived need for education and engagement. This study provides insights that may offer some explanation for reduced rates of living-donor transplantation amongst UK Chinese individuals. Further research is required to investigate observational research findings not explained here, and to develop effective strategies to improve treatment access for UK Chinese individuals with kidney disease.
英国华人对移植和器官捐赠的看法尚不清楚。目前尚不清楚生活在英国的华人的观点是否与生活在世界其他地方的华人不同，也不清楚英国华人的观点是否会因在英国居住的时间长短而有所不同。这项定性访谈研究旨在调查英国华人对肾脏捐赠和移植的看法。它是一项融合平行混合方法研究项目的一部分，同时还有一项定量登记研究，该研究发现与英国白人相比，英国华人获得活体供肾移植的机会更少。我们在英国三个城市对16名参与者进行了深入的半结构化访谈。参与者为长期居住在英国且自我认定为英国华人的人士。访谈于2020年4月9日至2020年7月16日期间进行。访谈内容逐字转录，使用NVivo软件进行编码，并采用归纳主题分析法进行分析。确定了三个主要主题和七个子主题：(1)亲属关系的重要性：生物学和社会层面的（i）家族主义，ii）关系等级制度，iii）匹配；(2)捐赠者的牺牲（i）对捐赠者的负面影响，ii）死后的身体完整性；以及(3)患者作为信息把关人（i）沉默文化，ii）对教育和参与的感知需求。本研究提供的见解可能有助于解释英国华人活体供体移植率较低的原因。需要进一步开展研究，以调查此处未解释的观察性研究结果，并制定有效的策略，以改善患有肾脏疾病的英国华人获得治疗的机会。
