QUALITY OF LIFE DURING ONE YEAR FOLLOW UPAFTER INTENSIVE CARE DISCHARGE

Patient treated in an Intensive care unit (ICU) are seriously ill. Have a high co‐morbidity, morbidity and mortality. ICUs are resource – demanding as they consume significant hospital resources for a minority of patients. The development of new medical procedures for critical care patients has over the years led to survival of large numbers with more complex illnesses and extensive injuries. Improved survival rates lead to needs for outcome measures other than survival. (1)Death and full recovery are two main and contrary outcomes of intensive care. As survivors often suffer from post intensive care unit (post‐ ICU) consequences, they cannot be regarded as fully recovered. Post‐ICU consequences are caused by an illness itself, organ dysfunction developed before ICU admission or acquired during the stay in the ICU, and/or prolonged intensive care support of failed organ(s). Organ failure in intensive care may have an impact on the life of ICU survivors long after their discharge from the ICU. To evaluate the quality of health and life in such patients as a whole, mere objective clinical or laboratory analyses are not enough. Subjective perception of the physical and mental quality of life by patients themselves becomes more and more important for the evaluation of post‐ICU outcomes.(2) As initial care advances and ICU mortality decreases number of survivors of critical illness is increasing. These survivors frequently experience longlasting complications of critical care. The purpose of this study is to understand these complications & implement evidence based practices to minimize them.

PERCEPTION OF ORGAN AND CORPSE DONATION AMONG STUDENTS OF BASIC MEDICAL SCIENCES

In this era of great health challenges, organ donation may be the only intervention to failing and failed organs. Organ donation is willingly accepting to donate an organ or part of an organ to someone with a failing organ or failed organ. There are very few voluntary donations. Cadavers a major tool in the study of anatomy is gotten through unclaimed bodies, corpse from condemned criminals and donation of corpse for teaching and research. This cross sectional survey includes 707 students, 390 dissecting students and 317 non dissecting students from the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Delta State University Abraka. Structured questionnaires were administered to the student and date analysed. This was done to know the perception of student to organ and corpse donation and to assess if dissection affects the willingness to donate one’s organ or corpse for research. Result generally showed a negative attitude to organ and corpse donation. Only 5.9% considered donating their organs and 4.1% considered donating their corpse for research. The poor attitude towards organ and body donation may be attributed to people not wanting their body to be disrespected (30%), fear of the effect of donation (23%), religious beliefs (10%), and traditional beliefs (6%). Surprisingly lack of awareness to donation of organs and corpse accounted for a few percentages.