Improving the management of potential brain-dead organ donors through a structured training and management-support intervention in Vietnamese hospitals: a multicenter quasi-experimental implementation study protocol

Abstract

Background The shortage of deceased organ and tissue donors remains a major barrier to transplantation worldwide and in Vietnam. Healthcare professionals working in intensive care and emergency departments play a crucial role in identifying potential brain-dead donors and initiating the donation process. However, studies indicate that limited knowledge, inconsistent attitudes, and suboptimal clinical and organizational competencies among these professionals can hinder timely donor identification, referral, and family consent. Objectives This study aims to characterize healthcare professionals' knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and practice competencies (KACP) regarding the management of potential brain-dead donors across five hospitals in northern Vietnam and to evaluate intervention-associated changes following implementation of a structured training and management-support program. The prespecified primary Phase 2 outcome is the change in the proportion of healthcare professionals achieving adequate knowledge (≥14/20 correct responses). Secondary outcomes comprise attitude, confidence, and scenario-based practice measures, while hospital-level donor-management indicators are treated as exploratory implementation outcomes. Methods This two-phase study is being conducted from January 2026 to December 2027 in five provincial and municipal general hospitals in northern Vietnam. Phase 1 comprises a multicenter cross-sectional assessment of ICU and emergency-department physicians and nurses, with a complementary qualitative component in the parent doctoral study. Phase 2 is a quasi-experimental controlled before–after implementation study involving one intervention hospital and one operationally comparable comparison hospital. Both hospitals undergo the same pre- and post-intervention competency assessments. The principal intervention contrast is the difference in pre–post change between the two hospitals; this estimate is interpreted as an intervention-associated contrast within the selected sites rather than a definitive cluster-level causal effect. Analyses will include McNemar tests for paired binary outcomes, paired t-tests or Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for paired quantitative outcomes, appropriate between-group tests, and difference-in-differences analyses. Ethics and dissemination This study involves human participants. Ethical approval was granted by the Institutional Review Board of Hanoi Medical University before study procedures were undertaken. Participation is voluntary, written informed consent is obtained from all participants, and coded analytical data exclude direct personal identifiers. Findings will be reported in aggregate and disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, scientific conferences, and reports to relevant health authorities and participating hospitals.