DT-02. Accompanying bone marrow and hematopoietic stem cell donors

Summary

The procedure for obtaining hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is a rather serious medical manipulation. Ensuring the safety and well-being of bone marrow donors is essential. Potential donors during this period need psychological support and assistance. The Vasya Perevoshchikov National Bone Marrow Donor Registry (National BMDR) includes a Donor Department, which employs clinical psychologists who act as coordinators: they route the donor and provide psychological support at all stages. During the initial call, it is important to resolve all remaining doubts of the donor, to identify a potentially dangerous late refusal of the donor to donate at the stage of HSC yielding. The donor may withdraw from his decision to donate cells at any stage, but a refusal is quite undesirable later than 10 days before the scheduled date of cell harvesting. More often, the refusals occur during the initial call, which indicates a lack of donor awareness at the stage of entry into the Register. Late refusals are caused by poor quality work of the Register staff.

Results

The HSC donation often raises many concerns and concerns among donors, despite the fact that they have voluntarily entered the Registry. Often, psychological support is needed not only for donors, but also for their family members, who are often against the consent of a close person to donate cells, fearing for his health. There are clinical psychologists who may reduce the percentage of refusals among the potential donors, to cope with their fears and make the whole donation process comfortable and calm. In 2022, the percentage of refusals due to the donor selection at the National Registry of Bone Marrow Donors (BMDR) was 5%, in the databases of Registries of state institutions, 13.4% (according to the National Medical Research Center for Hematology). Working with a donor begins from the moment of the initial call, continues during the period of examination and preparation for donation, during the donation procedure and over the recovery period after the HSC donation. Of importance, communication with potential donors should convenient and efficient for them.

Conclusion

The presence of a specialized unit for working with potential donors makes it possible to increase the efficiency of the donor database and reduce the percentage of refusal to donate the HSCs by more than two times. The main task is to professionally “dispel the fears” in potential donors, create a psychological positive attitude, which in the future will allow you to activate the most problematic potential donors who, however, may be quite necessary for a particular patient.

Keywords

Hematopoietic stem cell donors, motivation, psychological support, safety.