Getting to 96% Family constant rate for organ donation by PEIP method

K. Najafizadeh¹, O. Ghobadi¹, K. Hadisadegh¹, S. Abdollahi¹, M. Mottaghi¹, M. Moftakhari¹, A. Jamali¹

¹Lung Transplantation Research Center, Masih Daneshvari Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Introduction: Taking brain dead family consent is one of the most important steps of organ donation process. In spite of extensive social awareness activities, rate of family consent was still about 32% in Iran. To increase the rate of consent, we started a project named PEIP (Persian educating interviewers’ project) which is presenting here:

Methods: 1- We learned brain dead family interview fundamentals from TPM (Transplant Procurement Management) of Spain as one of the most successful teams of the world in this subject. 2- By checking the causes of family refusal and considering the cultural differences, we adjusted this science with our culture 3- By an interview and exam we selected 6 out of 70 volunteer psychologists. 4- After educating these psychologists and our coordinators for brain dead family interview we selected the interviewers who could get to the consent rate of more than 60%. 5- The interviewers discussed about their cases and took the others comments every other week and their expert teacher guided them. 6- We changed the interviewer if the first one could not get the consent in 48 hour. 7- We didn’t give up until getting the family consent or until the case had cardiac arrest.

Results: Family consent rate increased from %32 to %96.3 one month after starting the project and stayed more than 85% until now. The duration of interview needed, decreased from 24 – 72 hours to less than 12 hours in 72%, 12-24 hours in 21% and more than 24 hours in 7%. Organ retrieval increased from 12 to 27 monthly.

Conclusion: Brain dead family interview is a science and with regular educating the interviewers by experts, consent rate can increase to near 100%. We advise PEIP to be used in another countries specially the ones with similar culture.

Keywords: Organ donation, Brain death, family consent