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Cardiovascular medicine
Protocol
Cardiac donation after circulatory determination of death: protocol for a mixed-methods study of healthcare provider and public perceptions in Canada
  1. Kimia Honarmand1,
  2. Ian Ball1,2,
  3. Matthew Weiss3,4,
  4. Marat Slessarev1,
  5. Robert Sibbald5,
  6. Aimee Sarti6,
  7. Maureen Meade7,
  8. Frédérick D'Aragon8,9,
  9. Michael Chasse10,
  10. John Basmaji1,
  11. Jeanna Parsons Leigh11,12
  1. 1Department of Medicine, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
  2. 2Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
  3. 3CHU de Québec – Université Laval Research Center, Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Research Unit, Trauma-Emergency-Critical Care Medicine, Université Laval Faculté de Médecine, Québec, Québec, Canada
  4. 4Transplant Québec, Montreal, Québec, Canada
  5. 5Department of Family Medicine, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
  6. 6Department of Critical Care, The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
  7. 7Department of Medicine, Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
  8. 8Department of Anesthesiology, Universite de Sherbrooke Faculte de Medecine et des Sciences de la Sante, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
  9. 9Centre de Recherche du CHUS, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada
  10. 10University of Montreal Research Center, Innovation Hub and Department of Medicine (Critical Care), University of Montreal, Montreal, Québec, Canada
  11. 11School of Health Administration, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, Halifax, New Brunswick, Canada
  12. 12Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Cummings School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Kimia Honarmand; kimia.honarmand{at}medportal.ca

Abstract

Introduction Cardiac transplantation remains the best treatment for patients with end-stage heart disease that is refractory to medical or device therapies, however, a major challenge for heart transplantation is the persistent discrepancy between the number of patients on waiting lists and the number of available hearts. While other countries (eg, UK, Australia and Belgium) have explored and implemented alternative models of transplantation, such as cardiac donation after circulatory determination of death (DCDD) to alleviate transplantation wait times, ethical concerns have hindered implementation in some countries. This study aims to explore the attitudes and opinions of healthcare providers and the public about cardiac DCDD in order to identify and describe opportunities and challenges in ensuring that proposed cardiac DCDD procedures in Canada are consistent with Canadian values and ethical norms.

Methods and analysis This study will include two parts that will be conducted concurrently. Part 1 is a qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews with Canadian healthcare providers who routinely care for organ donors and/or transplant recipients to describe their perceptions about cardiac DCDD. Part 2 is a convergent parallel mixed-methods design consisting of a series of focus groups and follow-up surveys with members of the Canadian general public to describe their perceptions about cardiac DCDD.

Ethics and dissemination This study has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at Western University. The findings will be presented at regional and national conferences and reported in peer-reviewed publications.

  • cardiac donation
  • cardiac transplantation
  • donation after circulatory determination of death
  • mixed methods research
  • healthcare professional perceptions
  • ETHICS (see Medical Ethics)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033932

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @Ball

    • Contributors KH, IB and JPL contributed to the conception and design of this study with input from all other authors. All authors contributed to the refinement of the study design and the preparation of this manuscript.

    • Funding This work was supported by the Canadian Blood Services Kenneth J Fyke Award.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval Both components of this study have been approved by the Research Ethics Board at Western University.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.