1,721,025 research outputs found
Book review. Munson R 2004: Raising the Dead: Organ Transplants, Ethics and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 288p. GBP12.99 (PB). ISBN 0 19 517801 7
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The impact of health professionals' attitudes on referral of organ and tissue donors and donation rates
No full textConflict rationalisation: how family members cope with a diagnosis of brain stem death
No full textBrain death, whether it be brain stem death in the UK, or whole-brain death in the USA, is a prerequisite for heart beating organ donation. Understanding how brain death is perceived by family members approached about organ donation, its significance to them, and if it is accepted by them, are, therefore, important issues to explore as biomedicine expands the range of end of life technologies that blur the demarcation between life and death. To explore the concept of brain stem death and its meaning to family members the following research questions were posed: (i) what does the diagnosis of death based on brain stem testing mean to bereaved family members who have been approached and asked to consider a donation from a deceased relative, and (ii) how do family members understand the concept of brain stem death? To address these research questions, a secondary analysis of 28 interviews sorted from two primary datasets was carried out. The primary datasets contained longitudinal and crosssectional interviews carried out in the UK with family members who had been approached about organ donation and agreed to donate their relatives’ organs. Data analysis was guided by constructionist grounded theory method and resulted in the theory of Paradoxical Death. In this process, family members and health professionals engage in a series of practical and psychological activities aimed at rationalising real or potential emotional and cognitive conflict resulting from a brain-based diagnosis of death, whilst faced with the physical image of a functioning body. Rationalising emotional and cognitive conflict is how family members and health professionals appeared to process this paradoxical death, a death that is contrary to conventional opinion
Palliative care and end of life issues in UK pre-registration, undergraduate nursing programmes
Full text linkPalliative and end of life care topics have traditionally not been in nursing school curricula. Only in recent years have these been included. The aim of this research was to determine the current status of such an emphasis in programmes in the United Kingdom (UK). A mailed survey in 2006 to the 66 undergraduate (pre-registration) nursing programmes in the UK (return rate of 79%) determined that palliative and end of life care play a significant role in these programmes. Forty-five teaching hours on average were devoted to these topics. All of the schools have some provision on palliative and end of life care, and over 95% of students participated in these courses. A nurse was usually the primary instructor, although non-nurses were sometimes used. Attitudes toward dying and death and communicating with terminally-ill patients and family members were emphasised. By highlighting dying and death in the curricula, nursing schools appeared to be giving nursing students an opportunity to face the issue of death, thus helping them to be better prepared to help their patients and their families to do so
Information sharing: its impact on donor and nondonor families' experiences in the hospital
No full textObjective: To illustrate the methods used to convey complicated information regarding the critical injury, and death diagnosed by means of brainstem testing, to the next of kin of potential organ donors.Design: 3 year, prospective, longitudinal study.
Participants and Setting: Forty-three family members who chose to donate their deceased relatives’ organs were recruited via 4 transplant coordinating centres, and 3 family members who chose not to donate were recruited via 1 intensive care unit.Method: Face-to-face qualitative interviews were carried out with 46 family members of 43 individuals who died between June and December 2000. Family members who agreed to donation were interviewed during and after their next of kin’s admission to hospital and 3 to 5 months, 13 to 15 months, and 18 to 26 months after bereavement. Three participants who chose not to donate were interviewed on 1 occasion only. Interviews were audio-recorded, and the transcribed reports were analyzed using a comparative, thematic approach focusing on the detection of similarities and differences between cases.Results: Participants who were offered verbal information supported by complementary methods of communication had (1) a greater understanding of the critical injury sustained by their next of kin, and (2) fewer questions over time regarding brainstem testing.Conclusion: Better methods of communicating complicated information are needed, as the sheer load of information shared makes demands of next of kin at a time when they are cognitively and emotionally poorly equipped to respond
Why relatives do not donate organs for transplants: 'sacrifice' or 'gift of life'?
No full textAim. This paper is a report of a study to explore the reasons family members declined organ donation from a deceased relative.Background. In the United Kingdom family members’ consent is usually sought before organ donation from their deceased relative can proceed. Knowledge of the concerns that may influence families’ decision-making could be helpful to nurses supporting bereaved family members.Method. A convenience sample of 26 family members, who declined donation of their deceased relatives’ (n = 23) organs, were recruited via three media campaigns in large conurbations and from four intensive care units in the United Kingdom. Data were collected in 2005 using interviews.Findings. Donation decisions depended on a number of converging factors in a particular situation and not necessarily on the views of relatives about donation, or the reported wishes of the deceased in life, except if the person had stated that they did not wish to be an organ donor. Therefore, reported pro-donation views held by the family, or the deceased in life, did not guarantee donation. Protecting the dead body, which related to keeping the body whole and intact was the most frequently-recurring theme, being reported in 15 interviews.Conclusion. Families’ wishes to protect the dead body may stimulate tension between the notions of ‘gift of life’ as supported by transplant policy and ‘sacrifice’ of the body, which must be made if organ donation is to proceed. This could account for the decision of participants to decline donation even if their deceased relative previously held positive views about organ donation
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