Barriers and Facilitators to Eye Donation in Hospice and Palliative Care Settings: A Scoping Review

Background: The need for eye tissue for use in sight saving and sight restoring surgery is a global issue. Approximately 53% of the world's population has no access to interventions such as corneal transplantation. Low levels of eye tissue impact on service providers such as National Health Service Blood and Transplant who aim to achieve a weekly stock of 350 eyes but do not meet this target. Aim: Patients who die in hospice and palliative care settings could be potential donors; therefore the aim of this systematic scoping review was to identify the potential for eye donation and barriers toward it from these clinical contexts. Design: A scoping review following the Joanna Briggs scoping review methodology was applied to search the global literature. Results: 13 articles from the global literature were retrieved. Evidence indicate that 542 patients could potentially have donated their eyes. Key barriers to increasing eye donation include the reluctance of healthcare professionals to raise the option of eye donation and the evidenced lack of awareness of patients and family members about donation options and eligibility. This review also indicates a lack of clinical guidance drawn from high-quality evidence proposing interventions that could inform clinical practice and service development. Conclusion: The scoping review presented here provides an up-to-date view of the current potential for, perceptions toward, and practice underpinning offering the option of eye donation to dying patients and their family members in hospice and palliative care context.