Role of the hospital emergency department staff in the organ donation process: opinions of professionals working in the Spanish autonomous community of Aragon

Objective.

To determine the opinion of hospital emergency department staff on their involvement in the process of organ and tissue procurement and on aspects that might improve their participation.

Methods.

Emergency department physicians and nurses responded to a questionnaire during a course on the procurement of organ and tissue donations in the emergency setting. A total of 149 questionnaires were received from 78 nurses (52%) and 71 emergency physicians (48%) from 10 hospitals. Sixty-three percent of the respondents

worked in hospitals with intensive care units and 37% in centers without such units.

Results.

The respondents felt that the greatest difficulties in the donation process are related to communication and conveyance of information to the patients families (39.6%) and to the assessment of prognosis (29.2%). The physicians felt that evaluating prognosis was the main hurdle, whereas the nurses thought that communication with the family presented the greatest problem (P=.021). They also felt that the health care professionals involvement in the donation process was the key to improving organ procurement (83.1%). The availability of protocols (47.2%) and the need for training opportunities (31%) were considered necessary for increasing the involvement of emergency department staff in the process.

Conclusions.

The attitudes of hospital emergency department staff to organ and tissue donation are very positive, as suggested by their opinion that their own involvement in the process is the most important factor to target for improvement. These emergency physicians and nurses would like relevant protocols and training in the organ donation process.