Compassionate Care Among Iranian Nurses Caring for Candidate Brain Death Organ Donor Patients: A hermeneutic study

Abstract

Apart of cares provided at the end oflife of patients in intensive care unitsis allocated to the care of brain deathpatients, which is considered under title of one caringunit. Many nurses tend to provide high-quality and compassionatecare. However, studies indicated that almost allpatients do not receive compassionate cares. This researchwas carried out to explain the living experiences of nursesin intensive units providing care for brain death patients.In this hermeneutic phenomenological study, van Manen’smethodology was used. Ten nurses (9 women and 1 man)working in Intensive Care Units were interviewed usingsemi-structured interviews. The data derived from the interviewswas analyzed after recording and transcribing.The main theme of this study, which manifested the importantand innovative aspect of caring the brain deathpatients, was “compassionate care”. It included two subthemesof commitment and devotion with sub subthemesof responsible caring and kindness in caring and sympatheticsupport with sub subthemes of providing emotionalsupport to family and emotional influence.According to the results of this research, it can be concludedthat providing care for brain death patients, whowere candidate for donation, despite imposing psychologicalburden on nurses, has provided a compassionate carefor patient and family. This care is due to commitment,professional responsibility and deep emotional effects inthem. The research results provide the conditions for educationalplanners to train nurses in order to improve theircare provided for the patients and support the nurses.