DONATION AFTER CARDIOCIRCULATORY DEATH IN THE CONTEXT OF MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IN DYING

Abstract

Owing to the wide gap between the number of patients who would benefit from transplantation and the availability of organs, there is a pressing need to explore intentions of healthcare providers to enable controlled donation after cardiocirculatory death (cDCD) in the context of medical assistance in dying (MAiD). This is a major change in end-of-life practices and poses significant ethical and procedural challenges for care providers. Impetus is drawn from reconciling the discord surrounding autonomy for eligible MAiD patients who have capacity to be involved in shared decision-making. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was used to examine attitudinal, normative, and perceived behavioural control beliefs on these intentions in 132 MAiD service providers from multiple Canadian health jurisdictions. Regression analysis showed that the overall model significantly predicted 45% of variance in intention to enable cDCD. Of the theoretical constructs, moral norm and perceived behavioural control emerged as the key predictors.