Separate,Dedicated Care Teams for Living Organ Donors

Abstract

Living donation is an increasingly common option offered to patients in most transplant programs. Staff involved in the education, assessment, and care of this patient group is faced with increasingly complicated assessments both medically and psychologically. Supporting arguments for dedicated care teams for living organ donors include the large number of transplantations performed using living donors, the continued need to promote living organ donation, and the growing complexity of both medical and psychological factors in donor assessments. In addition, there is a need to implement the standards proposed by the 2000 Consensus Group, as well as to develop a body of evidence-based research related both to short- and long-term issues for this patient group. The ethical issues related to simultaneous involvement with both donors and recipients, and a need to ensure confidentiality are additional supporting arguments for the need to provide separate care providers for donors and recipients.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Olbrisch

Benedict

Haller

Levenson

. Psychosocial assessment of living donors: Clinical and ethical considerations. Prog Transpl. 2001;11:40–49.

Dorman

Bunker

. HLA–DQ locus of the human leukocyte antigen complex and type 1 diabetes mellitus: A huge review. Epidemiol Rev. 2000;22:218–227.

United Network for Organ Sharing Web site. 2000 Annual Report of the US Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network: Transplant Data 1989–1998. Available at: http://www.optn.org/data/annualReport.asp?url-/Data/ar2002/ar02_table101_dh.htm. Accessed March 28, 2003.

United Network for Organ Sharing Web site. 2001 Annual Report of the US Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR): Reported Deaths and Annual Death Rates Per 1000 Patient Years at Risk Waiting List, 1991 to 2000. Available at: http://www.optn.org/data/annualReport.asp?url=/data/ar02/ar01_table_107_dh.htm. Accessed February 9, 2003.

Burnapp

. Living donor transplantation: Impact of patient focused care on donor outcome. Edtna-Erca J. April-June 1998;24:11–13.

Gallagher

Smolinski

Higgins

Abrams

Nathan

. In-house transplant coordinator increases referrals and donations. J Transpl Coord. 1992;2:136–139.

Bertolatus

. Live kidney donor with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. Medscape Transplantation. Available at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/441844. Accessed October 17, 2002.

Ross

Woodle

. Ethical issues in increasing living kidney donations by expanding kidney paired exchange programs. Transplantation. 2000;69:1539–1543.

Jacobs

. A non-directed donor transplant program. Transpl News Issues. October 2002;3(2):24–25.

10.

Kasiske

. The evaluation of living renal transplant donors: Clinical practice guidelines. J Am Soc Nephrol. 1996;7:2288–2313.

11.

Abecassis

Adams

. Consensus statement on the live organ donor. JAMA. 2000;284:2919–2926.

12.

Ramcharan

Matas

. Long-term (20–37 years) follow-up of living kidney donors. Am J Transplant. 2002;2:959–964.

13.

Ellison

McBride

Taranto

. Living kidney donors in need of kidney transplants: A report from the organ procurement and transplantation network. Transplantation. 2002;74:1349–1351.

14.

Polit

Beck

Hungler

. Essentials of Nursing Research: Methods, Appraisals and Utilization. Philadelphia, Pa: Lippincott; 2001:5.