Summary

Emergency caregivers’ level of knowledge of organ and tissue procurement

Alonso Mateos Rodríguez^1,2, Oliver Fernández Ramos³, Gloria de la Rosa Rodríguez⁴, Rebeca Bajo Rodilla⁴, Miguel Agudo García⁵, Fernando Neria Serrano²

Affiliation of the authors

¹SUMMA112, Oficina Regional de Coordinación de Trasplantes, Madrid, Spain. ²Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, Spain. ³Servicio de Urgencias, Hospital Universitario Son Espases, Palma, Spain. ⁴Organización Nacional de Trasplantes, Madrid, Spain. ⁵Servicio de Urgencias, Hospital Universitario Son Llátzer, Palma. Coordinación Autonómica de Trasplantes Baleares, Spain.

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Mateos Rodríguez A, Fernández Ramos O, de la Rosa Rodríguez G, Bajo Rodilla R, Agudo García M, Neria Serrano F. Emergency caregivers’ level of knowledge of organ and tissue procurement. Rev Esp Urg Emerg. 2024;3:10–4

Summary

OBJECTIVE. To assess emergency department (ED) staff and responders’ knowledge of organ and tissue procurement and effective identification of donors in care settings.
MATERIAL AND METHODS. We developed 2 questionnaires, one for hospital ED staff and another for out-of-hospital responders in Spain. The questionnaires were available online to all hospital and prehospital staff through the web page of the Donation and Transplants working group of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (SEMES). They were also posted on social media
platforms to attract more respondents. We analyzed mean (SD) scores for quantitative variables and absolute and relative frequencies for qualitative ones using R software (version 4.2.3).
RESULTS. Responses to the questionnaire targeting hospital staff were received from 797 individuals: 514 physicians (65%) and 283 nurses (35%). Sixty-six percent of the hospitals (n = 531) extracted organs and tissues. The average score for knowledge of procurement was 4.6 (2.6), and 753 respondents (94.5%) believed that the hospital ED was an appropriate place to identify donors. Responses to the questionnaire targeting out-of-hospital emergency responders were received from 610 individuals: 231 (38%) physicians, 178 (29%) nurses, and 201 (33%) emergency medical technicians. No training about procurement had been received by
56.9%, and the respondents’ mean score evaluation of their training was 4.2 (2.9). Slightly over half (51.3%) felt able to identify possible donors in their work setting. Identifying possible donors fell within the competencies of emergency caregivers according to 95.7% of the respondents.
CONCLUSIONS. Our study reveals the need for a holistic approach to training ED staff and emergency responders to procure the donation of organs and tissues for transplantation. We report clear findings that allow us to conclude that professionals currently lack training in procurement and are little involved in the process.