• Aimee J Sarti, Stephanie Sutherland, Maureen Meade, Sam Shemie, Angele Landriault, Brandi Vanderspank-Wright, Sabira Valiani, Sean Keenan, Matthew J Weiss, Kim Werestiuk, Andreas H Kramer, Joann Kawchuk, Stephen Beed, Sonny Dhanani, Giuseppe Pagliarello, Michaël Chassé, Ken Lotherington, Mary Gatien, Kim Parsons, Jennifer A Chandler, Peter Nickerson, Pierre Cardinal, and Canadian Critical Care Trials Group.
• Department of Critical Care (Sarti, Pagliarello, Cardinal), Ottawa Hospital; Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (Sarti, Sutherland, Vanderspank-Wright); Common Law Section (Chandler), Faculty of Law, and School of Nursing (Vanderspank-Wright), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa; Canadian Blood Services (Shemie); Practice, Performance and Innovation Unit (Landriault), Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada; Division of Critical Care (Dhanani), Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa, Ont.; Department of Critical Care (Meade), Hamilton Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ont.; Department of Pediatrics (Shemie), McGill University; Department of Medicine (Chassé), Centre hospitalier de L'Université de Montréal, Montréal, Que.; Department of Adult Critical Care (Valiani, Kawchuk), Saskatchewan Health Authority, Saskatoon, Sask.; BC Transplant (Keenan); Division of Critical Care (Keenan), Department of Medicine, Univeristy of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC; Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Research Unit (Weiss), Trauma-Emergency-Critical Care Medicine, CHU de Québec-Université Laval, Quebec, Que.; Faculty of Health Sciences (Nickerson), University of Manitoba; Transplant Manitoba (Werestiuk), Winnipeg, Man.; University of Calgary (Kramer), Calgary, Alta.; Department of Critical Care (Beed), Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS; Canadian Blood Services (Lotherington), Halifax, NS; Horizon Health Network (Gatien), Miramichi, NB; Organ Procurement and Exchange of Newfoundland and Labrador (OPEN) (Parsons), St. John's, NL. asarti@toh.ca.
• CMAJ. 2022 Aug 8; 194 (30): E1054-E1061.

BackgroundDecisions about organ donation are stressful for family members of potential organ donors. We sought to comprehensively explore the donation process from interviews conducted with family members of patients admitted to pediatric and adult intensive care units in Canada.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study using semistructured, in-depth interviews with 271 family members asked to make an organ donation decision. We recruited participants from all provinces with an organ donation organization (n = 10), and analyzed themes using a modified grounded theory approach. On the basis of these interviews, suggestions were made by researchers and family members on how to improve the process of organ donation.ResultsWe identified 3 main themes and 9 subthemes. Families need more comprehensive support around the time of donation, including having access to someone with shared experiences, support during specific moments as needed and better support during critical transitions (e.g., when the donor body goes to the operating room). The theme of better connection to recipient(s) included receiving information about the donation surgery (e.g., which organs were recovered), establishing connection with recipients (e.g., via social networks or letters) and planned encounters. Support after donation, such as updates on organ transplantation, early mental health checks and continued connection to donor organizations, could be improved. We derived 20 suggestions for improving the organ donation process, derived from interviews with family members of pediatric and adult organ donors.InterpretationWe found gaps in family support during end-of-life and donation care. Feelings of abandonment, lack of support and poor-to-little follow-up provide the empirical findings needed for hospitals and organ donor organizations to provide better support to donor families.© 2022 CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors.

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