[Cornea donation consent by telephone].
BACKGROUND
The cornea donation process often runs into problems of obtaining family consent. A face-to-face interview is often not possible for logistical reasons. We carried out a prospective study on the effectiveness of telephone contact in obtaining donation consent.


METHODS
Consent was obtained by a single, non medical, hospital coordinator. He contacted families selected on good staff-family relations during the patient's stay. If a face-to-face interview was not possible, a telephone interview was conducted using a standardized procedure.


RESULTS
Over 21 months, 334 families were contacted, either in a face-to-face interview (142, 42.5%) or by telephone (192, 57.5%). Donation consent was obtained in 66.5% of cases, 106 times by telephone (47.7%) and 116 times in the face-to-face interview (52.3%). The acceptance rate was 55.2% by telephone and 81.6% face to face (p<0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
The telephone interview was an effective method for obtaining consent for cornea donation. Although the acceptance rate using this method is lower than the face-to-face interview, using the telephone should not be overlooked as this enabled procurement of nearly half the corneas in our hospital.
Gain
P
P
Service d'Ophtalmologie (pavillon 50A), CHRU de Bellevue, 25, Bd Pasteur, 42055 Saint-Etienne Cedex 2, France. philippe.gain@univ-st-etienne.fr
Thuret
G
G
Chiquet
C
C
Pugniet
J L
JL
Rizzi
P
P
Tchaplyguine
F
F
Acquart
S
S
Le Petit
J C
JC
Maugery
J
J
D003315:Cornea; D005190:Family; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D018579:Patient Selection; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013689:Telephone; D014019:Tissue Donors / Q000600:supply & distribution