Level of Knowledge and Attitude of ICU Nurses toward Organ Donation and the Related Factors: A Systematic Review

Nurses play a key role in the process of organ donation and transplantation, and previous studies have widely addressed the level of knowledge and attitude of intensive care unit (ICU) nurses in this regard. Considering the direct correlation between the positive attitude of the healthcare team, especially nurses, and the level of consent on organ donation, knowledge and attitude of nurses are important factors that have been assessed in several studies. However, no definite conclusions have been drawn in this regard. The present study aimed to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of ICU nurses toward organ donation and the related factors.
A systematic review was conducted via searching in databases such as ProQuest, Medscape, MedlinePlus, MagIran, PubMed, and ScienceDirect to identify the articles published during 1990-2015 using keywords such as knowledge, attitude, organ donation, and nurses.
Awareness and knowledge are the main determinants of attitude in nurses, which should be applied in order to foster positive attitudes in the process of organ donation. Furthermore, extensive clinical knowledge should be acquired on organ donation and communication skills by ICU nurses through proper training programs.
According to the results, using standard guidelines or scheduled training programs in nursing schools could improve the level of knowledge in nurses, which in turn enhances nursing performance. In addition, our findings indicated that positive attitude and knowledge of nurses could largely infleunce the viewpoint of families toward organ donation.