Donante potencial de órganos: Identificación por los enfermos en urgencias. Hospital de San José de Bogotá DC agosto a noviembre de 2007

Interventions carried out by nursing personnel on the potential organ donor are critical to assure op-timal use of transplantation organs. These professionals must have appropriate expertise on the basic aspects of organ donation and transplantation in order to become advocates of this treatment modality. Identification of knowledge and attitude gaps is required in order to promote, sensitize and increase the number of potential donors in the adult emergency room. Objective: to describe the theoretical elements involved in the identification of potential organ donors in the emergency room of the San José Hospital. Methodology: this was an observational quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study conducted between August and November, 2007. A 10-question survey based on the Colombian laws on organ donation was designed. The sample included 10 nurses who worked in the adult emergency room, resuscitation area and intermediate care unit of a level III hospital. Results: Sixty percent of the nursing personnel had worked in the emergency room for less than one year, 5 had worked there between 2 - 6 months and 1 only 15 days. The other 40% had worked there for more than a year. We observed that those who answered the survey were not familiar with, or did not recall the purpose of, the laws regarding organ donation in Colombia. The concept on absolute and relative contraindica-tions was not clear. Conclusion:as organ donation gives rise to expectation due to the large number of patients admitted to the dialysis programs, a quality assurance plan on the process of donation/procurement in hospitals needs to be established, providing a methodology which will be a useful tool to perform this work. Using an organized detection and identification protocol of the potential donor which directly involves the nursing professional, would contribute to increase the number of possible candidates for organ donation and transplantation.