Brain Death and Organ Transplant around the World and the Factors Affecting Organ Donation: A Scientometrics Study

Today, organ transplant from brain-dead patients is unavoidable for patients for whom other medical treatments do not work. Therefore, identifying the factors affecting organ donation can be an essential step in increasing the number of organ transplants. Using a quantitative approach and Scientometrics techniques, the present study investigated scientific products indexed in brain death and organ donation in three databases: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The statistical population of this study consisted of 9018 articles on brain death and organ donation. We used Bibexcel, Vos Viewer, and Netdraw software for data analysis and map drawing. The transplanted organs were grouped based on the ICD-10 version of 2019. In terms of transplanted organs, the highest number of articles related to kidney transplants (13.5%), lung transplants (9.75%), and heart transplants (7.21%). Among the factors affecting organ transplant, ethical aspects (15.09%), law and legal issues (14.07%), and attitude and belief (8.95%) were in the first to third ranks. Analysis of keywords showed that before 2000, keywords related to factors affecting organ donation, including ethical issues, family role, legal issues, and informed consent, were among the 20 most frequent. After 2000, articles addressed the type of transplant tissue and post-transplant issues such as transplant survival and transplant recipient. Results showed various factors affecting organ donation, and societies are involved in multiple issues in the organ transplant field, as well as donors' encouragement. Identifying these issues following such research, while encouraging more researchers, can help increase the number of organ donations worldwide.