In order to find out how close relatives perceive the care staff's response to this difficult situation, Linda Gyllström Krekula, a socio-economist and researcher at KI in a qualitative study, has in-depth interviewed relatives of organ donors. She wanted to know if they could imagine becoming organ donors after witnessing the care in connection with a relative donating their organs.
- It is a way to find out what donation-promoting care that relatives find reasonable at the end of life. Naturally, we cannot ask the donors, says Linda Gyllström Krekula.
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The donors' willingness to donate becomes a measure of whether the care has been experienced correctly.
Of the 21 people included in the study, as many as 18 people could imagine donating their organs. Only one person went from being positive to organ donation before the event to becoming negative.
- Almost all relatives express that the donation makes sense to the otherwise so meaningless death. Especially parents of children who become organ donors have an amazing ability to feel empathy for the child who needs an organ despite their own despair, says Linda Gyllström Krekula.
After the donation, the relatives find out how many of the dead's organs could be recovered and how it went for those people. Each donor can save the lives of up to eight seriously ill people.
The study was published in PlosOne.
Here you can register for the donation register.
See “Organ on the road” in the World of Science on Monday 20.00 in SVT2 on September 23 and the “Donation” on Tuesday 21.00 SVT1 on September 24, or on SVT Play.