The Ultimate Act of Love: Living Organ DonationReleased: Fri 23-Jan-2009, 13:00 ET In the U.S. today, over 98,000 people of all ages are waiting to receive a donated liver, kidney, heart, or other organ to give them a second chance at life. The good news is that organ donation is on the rise, though need still far outstrips demand, particularly among minority populations whose donation rates remain below the national average. Three-quarters of transplants are from individuals whose organs are donated at their death as a last act of love by the donors themselves or their families. Today, a growing number of people actually see the result of their ultimate gift of love. They are living organ donors, and they make possible over one-fifth of all transplants each year. But who become a living donor and why? What information do they need to guide their decision? Who should be involved in the decision? And how can nurses best help support the patients and family involved in the process? Those are exactly the kinds of questions JHUSON Associate Professors Marie Nolan, PhD, MPH, RN; and Laura Taylor, PhD, RN, have been asking and answering in their groundbreaking research focused on the physical and emotional impact of living donor decisions.
Nolan's work, which also informs the fields of bioethics and end-of-life caregiving, has explored the process of living kidney donation, from the initial decision through surgical recovery. Her findings will help guide living donor education and informed consent, providing nurses and other transplant professionals information to help donors negotiate the decision regarding donation and for those who do donate, the recovery process. Taylor's findings the first of their kind to be reported in the literature give nurses insight into working with the family of a living kidney donor, including the stress that she found often is reported by family caregivers of living kidney donors during postoperative recovery. To help better educate and prepare potential living organ donors and their families, she developed and is pilot testing the Living Donor Information Network for Caregivers (LINC), a web-based information and support intervention. "Every living kidney donor is so generous," says Taylor. "We want them and their families to feel confident in their decision and for those who do donate, supported in their recovery."
Nolan observes, "Research on living organ donor decision-making is exciting and rewarding because it has the potential to improve so many lives." Maybe that is why she and Taylor have been joined in this work by their JHUSON colleagues Drs. Benita Walton-Moss, Linda Rose, and Anne Belcher. Their research shows great promise to inform living donor decision support and care at home and around the world.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/548291/
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