Is there an association between consent rates in Swiss hospitals and critical care staffs' attitudes towards organ donation, their knowledge and confidence in the donation process?

This study investigated the critical care staff’s attitude, knowledge and involvement with donation, skills and confidence with donation-related tasks and their association with consent rates at the hospital level. In 2015, we conducted a cross-sectional survey among critical care staff of hospitals involved in organ donation using an anonymous online questionnaire with a response rate of 56.4% (n = 2799). The hospital level consent rate was obtained from the Swiss Monitoring of Potential Donors database (2013–2015). For each hospital, we calculated a mean score for each predictor of interest of the Hospital Attitude Survey and investigated the association with hospital consent rates with generalized linear mixed-effect models. In univariable analysis, one score point increase in doctors' confidence resulted in a 66% (95% CI: 45%–80%) reduction in the odds to consent, and one score point increase in nurses' attitudes resulted in a 223% (95% CI: 84%–472%) increase in the odds to consent. After simultaneously adjusting for all major predictors found in the crude models, only levels of education of medical and nursing staff remained as significant predictors for hospital consent rates. In Switzerland, efforts are needed to increase consent rates for organ donation and should concentrate on continuous support as well as specific training of the hospital staff involved in the donation process.