Organ donation
Organ and Tissue Donation Knowledge Among Intensive Care Unit Nurses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.transproceed.2009.01.113Get rights and content

Abstract

Introduction

Increased cadaveric donation may be achieved by improving medical staff education to enhance consent rates. This study was designed to examine the critical items that influence nurse knowledge regarding the concepts of brain death and the attitudes toward cadaveric donor renal transplantation. These findings may be useful to evaluate future progress in education.

Subjects and methods

A 31-item questionnaire was distributed to 418 nurses in 24 intensive care units (ICUs) in our hospitals. In addition to initial data regarding age, sex, and marital status, knowledge about donation was evaluated by eight questions. The first four questions pertained to judical and legal knowledge, the second two to economic knowledge, and the last two to concepts of brain death.

Results

Three hundred and two women and 116 men participated in this study. Their mean age was 31.98 years (range = 22–55 years). Two hundred fifty-six (61.2%) of them were married. Three hundred sixteen (75.6%) expressed favorable attitudes regarding cadaveric donation. The major reason for their consent was humanity, and the major reason for their disagreement was “body respect.” Of the 418 nurses, 105 (25.1%) stated positive attitudes toward living kidney donation.

Conclusion

The legal definition of death and the medical definition of death should be uniform in the view of society. To make all medical staff favor cadaveric renal transplantation, they should agree on a definition of death. It was observed that the relatively high rate of misinterpretation of the brain-death concept among respondents negatively affected nurses attitudes toward cadaveric renal transplant. It was concluded that the “concept of brain death” and the “preferences of transplant over other treatment modalities” are the two items that need further attention in educational programs for nurses.

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

This cross-sectional study examined the knowledge and attitudes of 418 nurses who worked in 24 ICUs of eight hospitals in Tehran. Our questionnaire about tissue donation and transplantation included 31 items asking for demographics, knowledge, and attitudes. From these 31 items, we evaluated nurse knowledge by eight questions. The first four questions pertained to judical and legal knowledge; the second two, economic knowledge; and the last two, the concept of brain death. The other 21 items

Results

The 418 ICU nurses who answered the questionnaire had an age range of 22 to 55 years. Their mean age ± standard deviation was 31.9 ± 6.5 years with a normal distribution. The male-to-female ratio was 116 to 302. Among these nurses, 256 (61%) were married. Three hundred sixteen (76%) agreed with organ and tissue donation after death, while 99 (24%) had negative attitudes. “Help to others” versus “honor to body” were the most frequent reasons among positive versus negative attitudes. Only 105/418

Discussion

It seems that most ICU nurses agree with organ and tissue donation after death; they said their main cause is “help to others” as we seen in Tebourski et al's study.4 In nurses with negative attitude toward organ and tissue donation after death, “to honor the body” is the main cause. In Tebourski et al's study, the most common reason for opponents of organ donation was religious thoughts.4 Kececioglu et al also found that religious thoughts can affect on people's attitude toward organ donation.5

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This research has been supported by Tehran University of Medical Sciences and health services grant.

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