Introduction: After producing a procurement procedure for organs or tissues in Buenos Aires City, Argentina, a letter of thanks is sent to the donor families and the age and sex of the recipients are reported. Given the need to support them, a follow-up program is created for the donor family based on the premise of accompanying each family's own grief.
Material and methods: A qualitative evaluation was carried out in two stages to 163 families. The first stage (42 families) was carried out through the PPAOT mental health team, with only one interview. In the second stage by the mental health team of EAIT and Velez Sarfield Hospital (121 families), mostly from pediatric donors, with repeated interviews for an average three-month period. Interviews with relatives of pediatric donors were initially carried out with both parents and siblings and then individually. In the case of an adult donor, it was done with two relatives and then an individual.
Results: Families mostly expressed feeling content, cared for, respected, listened to warmly and affectionately. Here it is visualized that the family finds a continent where they can express the feelings of emptiness, loss and loneliness. The main observations in the cases with police intervention were to be able to separate the experiences of the police procedure with the feelings in relation to the decision to donate and the transfer of hostility towards the procurement teams was worked on. It was also possible to process the experiences of the family at the time of transfer of donated organs and tissues. The lack of knowledge of the work of the procurement teams appears repeatedly, highlighting the surprise for the transparency, care, responsibility and affection of their task.
Discussion: In most cases, a normal evolution of grief is observed, with chronological shortening of the first stages of mourning, where the solidarity shown at the time of donation extends to a detachment of personal material objects from the donor and in participation of the family in activities of promotion of the donation and accompaniment of other families in mourning situations.
Conclusions: The donation allows the beginning of the duel and its elaboration with more experiential elements from the repair achieved through the exercise of a solidary act. The activities in the promotion of the donation of the donor families facilitate the conformation of networks of patients and their articulation with transplant patients.