Role of quality of care and treatment in faciliting decision making and consent to organ donation in brain dead family: a qualitative study

Background: Caring for family is essential for organ donation request and decision making process and nurses are responsible for family caring. Aim: the present study have performed to explore the role of quality of care and treatment in facilitating decision making and consent to organ donation in family of the  brain death patient. Methods: A qualitative research approach with its focus on the content analysis was exploited. Participants were 26 brain-dead families who consented or refused from organ donation. Sampling method has started as purposive and continued as theoretical in transplantation center in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in 2012. Accordingly, 38 unstructured interviews were conducted and data were analyzed using conventional content analysis. Data collection process included 38 unstructured in- depth interviews request. Results: The analysis of the data leads to extraction of 610 initial codes and 13 categories and 4 themes including viewing the sufficiency of the care and treatment of the injured patients, empathic and effective communication, emotional support and giving assurance. From the abovementioned themes, “Motivational atmosphere of the decision-making” was extracted as the central theme. Conclusion: This study showed that health care and the team can play a significant role in brain dead family decision making and guiding it towards the consent or refuse to donate the organ. It is recommended that a specialized team consisting of doctors and nurses is formed this specialized training give them rely on caring of family in this complication situation (Communicational skills, support and mourning consulting).