Consenting to donation: an examination of current practices in informed consent for tissue donation in the US

Informed consent is the primary moral principle guiding the donation of human tissue for transplant purposes. When patients’ donation wishes are not known, family members making the decision about tissue donation should be provided with requisite information needed to make informed donation decision...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cell and tissue banking 2013-03, Vol.14 (1), p.85-95
Main Authors: Siminoff, Laura A., Traino, Heather M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Age
Autopsy
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Blood & organ donations
Cell Biology
Decision making
Demography
Ethics
Female
Humans
Informed consent
Informed Consent - legislation & jurisprudence
Life Sciences
Male
Regression Analysis
Tissue and Organ Procurement - legislation & jurisprudence
Tissues
Transplant Surgery
United States
United States Office of Research Integrity
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Summary:Informed consent is the primary moral principle guiding the donation of human tissue for transplant purposes. When patients’ donation wishes are not known, family members making the decision about tissue donation should be provided with requisite information needed to make informed donation decisions. Using a unique dataset of 1,016 audiotaped requests for tissue obtained from 15 US tissue banking organizations, we examined whether the information provided to families considering tissue donation met current standards for informed consent. The results indicated that many elements of informed consent were missing from the donation discussions, including the timeframe for procurement, autopsy issues, the involvement of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and the processing, storage and distribution of donated tissue. A multiple linear regression analysis also revealed that nonwhites and family members of increased age received less information regarding tissue donation than did younger, white decision makers. Recommendations for improving the practice of obtaining consent to tissue donation are provided.
ISSN:1389-9333
1573-6814
DOI:10.1007/s10561-012-9303-7