Appointing nurses trained in organ donation to improve family consent rates.
Marloes Witjes, Nichon E Jansen, Jacqueline van Dongen and 5 others
PMID 31294520WHAT IT FOUND
Trained nurse guidance did not show a higher family consent rate.
Guided requests had higher rates, but the study was too small to be sure.
Key findings
01Overall, consent was 41/58 donation requests with trained practitioner guidance and 83/143 without, but the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.095).
02Among guided requests, early and late strategies did not differ significantly (68.0% vs 72.7%, P = 0.78).
03Funding did not allow round-the-clock practitioner coverage, so many requests occurred without guidance.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was small and underpowered, so higher consent rates with guidance were not shown to be statistically significant. Funding did not allow round-the-clock coverage by trained practitioners, so many donation requests occurred without guidance, especially in acute, weekend, or night situations. The control group consisted of donation requests without a practitioner in the same hospitals and period, so differences may reflect practitioner availability rather than an assigned comparison. Important confounders were not measured or controlled, including donor age and sex, length of stay, known donation wishes, family attitudes, circumstances of death, and time of request. The table shows a significant difference in one hospital, but the overall comparison was not significant, so that subgroup finding should not be overinterpreted.
Declared interests
The supplied text gives no detailed conflict-of-interest or funding statement; the publication types note non-U.S. government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the significant result in one hospital as proof that trained nurse guidance improves organ donation consent. The overall comparison was not statistically significant, and the study was underpowered.