Parents’ experiences of paediatric organ donation: a systematic review of qualitative studies

and analysed according to the principles of thematic analysis.This review was prepared in accordance with the PRISMA checklist.Results: The analysis identified three overarching themes: 1 Parents' need for support, reassurance and trust in healthcare personnel, 2 Parents' personal values and value-based preferences, and 3 Parents' acceptance in the face of death.Parents need compassionate care and validation from healthcare personnel as well as sufficient information and time to make decisions about organ donation.In most cases, parents were unaware of the child' s own wishes, though some found comfort in knowing that part of the child would live on.Parents struggling to come to terms with the death of their child may find consenting to organ donation particularly difficult.Conclusion: This study shows that parents can find the question of paediatric organ donation both meaningful and emotionally distressing.Parents are in an extremely vulnerable situation, where insufficient information and lack of validation of how they are feeling can negatively impact the decision-making process.Intensive care nurses can help establish a good relationship with parents in this difficult situation by using communication that acknowledges the complexity of the parents' emotions and needs. Quality assessmentEach article included was critically appraised using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme CASP checklist 22 .The checklist for qualitative research was selected as it provides a clear and systematic framework for critical appraisal, guiding researchers through the process with structured questions.Responses to the checklist items were recorded as ' Yes' , ' No' , or ' Uncertain' .All studies were deemed to be of moderate to high quality Table 3 .