COMMUNITY ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE PROVISION OF INFORMATION REGARDING ORGAN & TISSUE DONATION & END OF LIFE CARE IN CRITICAL CARE WAITING ROOMS

Shena Graham¹, Carol Woeltjes¹, Belinda Heasman¹, Joanne Matchado², David Pilcher^1,3, Asim Shah¹, Steve Philpot^1,3

¹ICU, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, ²Patient and Family Services, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, ³Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Introduction

Limited literature exists relating to the acceptability and impact of providing information on organ and tissue donation, death and end of life care in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) waiting rooms.  Presently no such information is provided in the ICU waiting room at The Alfred Hospital. Our aim was to determine attitudes to provision of information about death and organ donation amongst family members of patients who have previously been admitted to ICU.

Method

Family members of patients who had been admitted to ICU were identified from the ICU database.  Potential participants were contacted by telephone. Those who agreed to participate were then sent a questionnaire regarding acceptability, usefulness and appropriateness of information about death and organ donation, if it were made available in the ICU waiting room. 

Results

161 families were contacted by telephone of whom 100 agreed to participate in the survey. Reasons for non-participation included: not contactable (n=34, 21.1%); excluded for both no response and English being a second language (n=62, 38.5%); “wished to move on” and “limited experience of ICU waiting room” (n=33, 20.5%). Preliminary analysis of the first 10 of 59 surveys returned, suggest that 9/10 respondents thought it was acceptable to have information about organ and tissue donation and all 10 thought it appropriate to have information about death in the ICU waiting room.

Conclusion

If responses to this survey reflect general public opinion, it is likely that future provision of information about death and organ donation within the ICU waiting room will be acceptable to family members of patients. Further analysis of all surveys is required to confirm these findings. If information is provided, its impact will be assessed in a future study.