La participación de profesionales sanitarios portugueses en la detección de donantes de órganos (Involvement of portuguese health care professionals in identifying organ donors)

Health care professionals who work at Critical Care Units (CCU) constitute a key group in the process of obtaining organs for transplantation. For this reason, and with the purpose of understanding the set of variables associated to the process involved in identifying potential organ donors, a survey was conducted among professionals from CCU in three important hospitals in Lisbon. A multivariate model has been elaborated using logistic regression analysis. According to the model, variables associated to the process of identifying a potential organ donor are: perception of the level of information about organ donation and transplantation; when information about this topic was received in the year prior to the present research; perception about own capability to assess a patient as a potential organ donor; perception about the amount of work when an organ donor is identified; perception about the attitude of next-of-kin toward organ removal; and perception about the reversibility of the brain death.