Do we have to tell the patient's family everything concerning organ donation?
Authors: Ibrahim Somaya , Zarei Kobra Mohammad 
Published: December 2019

Background: Globally there have been many initiatives to enhance the number of organ donors. The number of individuals waiting for a transplant is significantly higher than the number of available donated organs and the gap continues to widen. In the United States, it has been reported that over 106,000 individuals are awaiting organ donation. The family plays a crucial role in the organ donation process. Therefore, it is important to understand the organ donation experiences of family members in the Arab world which extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Gulf in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to Central Africa and the Indian Ocean in the south. There are some challenges surrounding organ donation due to ethical, legal, and social problems. Besides that, religious and traditional issues are more common in the Middle East and Gulf region. In the Middle East, organ donation after brain death or for living donors have less family members’ willingness and acceptance. Family members of organ donation cases face many challenges before accepting the terms of donation. In reference to this issue, many studies stress the need for family involvement, education and awareness programs in early stage of brain death, even in acute cases that are subject to time constraints.

We aim to examine findings of an integrative literature review and explore families’ decision-making process related to organ donation of brain dead patients or living donors, posing the question “Do we have to tell the patient's family everything concerning organ donation?” Answering this question will help healthcare providers to understand factors, barriers and culturally sensitive aspects that are leading to the willingness and acceptance of organ donation. Methods: The integrative literature review was based on Cooper's five-stage process. These stages clearly summarized by Russell include problem formulation, data collection or literature search, evaluation of data, data analysis, and interpretation and presentation of results. To determine the sample of the review, published scientific papers in indexed periodicals electronic databases, such as CINAHL, Medline, Google Scholar with Full Text and PubMed from 2009-2019 were searched. Results: The result of the review highlighted the importance of different aspects that lead to acceptance of organ donation. We anticipate that the results of this review will increase awareness of the patients’ families concerning organ donation experiences and its impact on the decision-making process. In addition, it will help healthcare professionals and policymakers to consider new strategies, ways of thinking, and communication strategies that can be adopted with patients’ families concerning organ donation. Organ donation campaigns can help raise public and healthcare providers’ awareness of the benefits of such programs. Conclusions: This review identified that public orientation and family support is the ideal approach for family consent which often remains the only way for organ donation to be made possible. In addition to that, there is a need for the development of supportive policies and continuous education and training programs for healthcare providers and proper utilization of resources to improve the organ donation process.