Benefit of a hospital course about organ donation and transplantation: an evaluation by Spanish hospital transplant personnel.

UNLABELLED: A considerable percentage of hospital personnel are against organ donation, which at a crucial time could act as an obstacle to donation. Moreover, there is often a lack of training of personnel necessary for them to provide accurate information about organ donation and transplantation. Our objective was to determine the acceptability of a training course about organ donation among hospital workers in a center with an ongoing solid organ transplant program. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A random sample (n = 1168) was stratified by type of service and job category among workers in hospital services within an organ transplant program. An evaluation was made of attitudes toward donation and acceptance of a training course using a validated psychosocial questionnaire. Distribution of the survey was made by the head of each service and job category. The survey was completed anonymously and self-administered. RESULTS: Sixty-nine percent (n = 808) of respondents were in favor of donating their own organs. With respect to the benefit of a training course about organ donation and transplantation, 50% (n = 584) of respondents considered it to be a useful idea, whereas 15% (n = 176) did not, and 35% (n = 408) were not sure. An important finding was that 56% (n = 452) of those who are in favor of donation would take part in the course compared to only 37% (n = 132) of those who were against or undecided. There was a significant relationship between those workers who believed that the training course will be of use and the following factors: younger age (P = .000); women (P = .000); single (P = .000); nursing job category (P = .000); a temporary contract (P = .012); a worker in nonsurgical services (P = .000); prior understanding of the concept of brain death (P = .003); favoring cadaveric organ donation (P = .000); performing pro-social voluntary type activities (P = .000); discussions of organ donation and transplantation within the family (P = .022); Catholic religion (P = .001); a partner in favor of organ donation and transplantation (P = .001); and a belief that he may need a transplant (P = .000). CONCLUSIONS: A training course about organ donation and transplantation might be useful given that only half of the workers would be prepared to take part and with respect to the target population, only 37% of them stating that they would participate. Its main use would be to reinforce the positive attitude of those who are already in favor and increase their knowledge about the subject. What is more, if these workers received adequate training they would serve to promote donation both directly and indirectly to the general public and other hospital personnel.

Breast cancer acute radiotherapy morbidity evaluated by different scoring systems.

Reporting of the outcome of radiotherapy is not satisfactory without a description of the treatment-related side effects. The purposes of this paper were: (1) to evaluate the frequency and the severity of collateral skin reactions in a group of breast cancer patients; (2) to report the acute reactions using some current scoring systems and to compare the application of them, and (3) to investigate the variation between intra- and interobservers using these different scales. We studied 108 breast cancer patients who, after surgical treatment, received adjuvant radiotherapy. Clinical skin evaluation was always performed by the same radiotherapist the last day of treatment, and the collateral radiation effects were photographed at that moment to facilitate later evaluations by another two expert doctors. Normal tissue damage was scored according to the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group/The European Organisation for Research, and Treatment of Cancer/ (RTOG/EORTC), the Danish, the European, and the Biomed2 side-effect scales. The most frequent acute complications found were erythema (91.7%), dry desquamation (29.6%) and moist desquamation (35.2%). The reactions were classified as severe in 13.9, 23, 18.5 and 13% of the patients with each of the different systems used, respectively. The concordance between the scoring of radiation-induced side effects on the skin assessed by direct observation of the patients or by examination of the photographic document was sufficient. This is a warrant of accuracy in the evaluation of acute normal tissue lesions. Our results allow us to state the advantage of the RTOG system over the others in terms of evaluating the acute effects produced by radiotherapy of women with breast cancer.