Anaesthesia and intensive care
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Feb 1995
Comment Letter Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical TrialIntramuscular ketorolac for analgesia after laparoscopic sterilization.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Feb 1995
A survey of personal and professional attitudes of intensivists to organ donation and transplantation.
A questionnaire survey was carried out to examine the attitudes and practices of Australian and New Zealand intensivists with regard to brain death and organ donation. A return rate of 82.5% was achieved. Fifty-eight per cent had written evidence of their own wishes to donate organs and 94% would agree to donation from a dependent. ⋯ Perceptions of family grief and cultural differences clearly inhibit requests for organ donation. A very few units have an effective policy on approaching families about organ donation. Intensivists have almost exclusive control over requests for organ donation and thus bear a full professional responsibility for this element of hospital practice.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Feb 1995
Comparative StudyObtaining consent for organ donation in nine NSW metropolitan hospitals.
Organ donation rates vary markedly around the world. In an attempt to analyse why some patients' families are not asked about organ donation, the case notes of 6080 patients who died over a twelve-month period from April 1991 to March 1992 in nine hospitals in Sydney, NSW, were studied. Irreversible coma occurred in 515 patients. ⋯ There was universal failure to gain consent from families when the patient was not in an Intensive Care Unit. Analysis of those patients of whom consent was not sought showed that they died more quickly after admission, were older and died from causes other than trauma or intracranial haemorrhage. The odds of the family being asked dropped by about half as the age increased from one group to the next.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Feb 1995
A survey of families of brain dead patients: their experiences, attitudes to organ donation and transplantation.
A questionnaire survey of 69 families of brain dead patients is reported. The study population included those who had been asked about organ donation as well as those who had not, those who had agreed to organ donation and those who had declined. Their experiences and their perceptions of treatment and explanations of underlying disease, brain death and organ donation were examined. ⋯ There was a highly significant relationship between those who had previously discussed organ donation to have expected to be asked or to raise the subject themselves. Hospital treatment in general did not appear to have any effect on the decision to donate. Involvement in organ donation was felt by most of the donor families to have been helpful to the grieving process.