Prog Transplant
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To examine attitudes toward death criteria and their relation to attitudes and behaviors regarding organ donation. ⋯ Both general and ethical education may serve to guide policy and facilitate family member requests and informed consent dialogues. Furthermore, helping families to understand and accept not only medical and legal criteria for determining death, but also ethical criteria for withdrawing life support may help them be more comfortable with their decisions.
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Although research exists examining the experiences of organ donor families, little is known about the specific needs of tissue donor families. Understanding family experiences in tissue donation is important to improve the process and potentially increase the number of families who consent to tissue donation. ⋯ Seventy-seven of 140 mailed questionnaires were returned. Almost all respondents expressed satisfaction with the approach to donate, and this did not differ with the mode of approach, that is, by phone or in person. The most common reason for agreeing to donation was that it was known to be the donor's wish. The majority of respondents felt they had sufficient time and information to decide to donate, and almost all were happy with their decision and thought they had received adequate support during and after the process.
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Family members of organ donors receive anonymous information about the transplant recipients. Also, they often receive written communication from the recipients themselves and or the recipient's family members, expressing gratitude for the generous gifts they donated. The feedback received by donor families serves to affirm that their altruistic decision to donate life-saving and life-enhancing gifts has saved or dramatically improved the lives of the recipients. ⋯ In contrast, family members of bone and soft tissue donors historically have not received the same level of feedback provided to the family members of organ donors. The tissue banking community, as an extension of the procurement community that provides care to tissue donor families, is in a unique position to facilitate meaningful feedback between bone and soft tissue donor families and their recipients. This article explores the use of tissue packaging as a communication portal to solicit and facilitate the needed feedback loop between bone and soft tissue donor families and their recipients.