The experience of living an organ donation

Identifier:  TFG:1884

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG1884

Authors:  Palmeiro Pablo, Pilar

Abstract:
Explanation: Nowadays, and for twenty-six years ago, Spain leads both global rankings of organ donation and transplants per million of population; information that it’s included in the records published by the National Organization of Transplants. However, the waitlists continue on being too high, becoming in some cases, the cause of the patient’s death; fact that reflexes the requirement of an accurate health education given to the community, related to this theme and a constantly formation of the health professionals. Objective: Due to the high organ demanding frequency, our main objective was to understand the knowledge, experience and perspective that every person who is involved in this process might have, in order to see the requirements that could appear. Methodology: In order to achieve our goals, we had to host three interviews, one interview to a nurse, one to a sibling and another to an organ receiver. All of them, chosen by the nearby proximity and the development of our quality project; in which we wanted to be conscious about the feelings and the experience during this situation; so that we didn’t pay attention into the details in the contestants’ organ requirement case. Results: The need of a transplant, appears from an organic dysfunction on the patient’s body, which in some cases, becomes a vital threat. Sometimes, these signs of organic dysfunction can’t be detected due to it’s unspecific character, only becoming clear when the stage of the disease is too advanced. Conclusion: Both organ receiver, sibling and nurse, had the same opinion about how beneficial organ transplant was, especially in the quality of living and the positive changes on it. In addition, they all agreed in the worth of coming through the experiences and sacrifices that they had to come along in order to finally having an organ transplant. Nevertheless, we found that, during the progress of their illness situation, they can experience different types of complications that depends on the organ requirement’s type or the phase the patient’s in (waitlist, immediate postoperative, long term complications, etc.), makes clear that the holistic and multidisciplinary base of the attending process is essential in order to provide a qualified assistance.