A prospective study on living related kidney donors’ quality of life in the first year: choosing appropriate reference data

Abstract

Prospective studies on living kidney donors' quality of life (QoL) are still rare. Most existing studies compare healthy donors with the general population, including subjects with diseases. This is the first prospective study comparing living donors' QoL with reference data of both the general population and healthy individuals. We investigated QoL, anxiety, and depression in living kidney donors (n = 79) before donation and at two post-operative data points (three months and one yr). Subsequently, data from the donors were compared with the reference data. Our results show an impaired physical QoL three months post-donation. One yr after surgery, physical QoL had returned to the pre-operative level. Neither mental QoL nor anxiety or depression showed major changes across time. Pre-operative QoL was comparable to that of healthy individuals and higher than that in the general population. Donors' perception of the recipient's health showed moderate correlations with donors' mental outcome three months after donation. In conclusion, the impact on physical QoL seems to persist for at least three months after kidney donation. It could be demonstrated that in the context of living donation, healthy individuals provide more adequate reference data. Future research needs to determine the length and the nature of the post-operative QoL impairment and further explore possible influencing factors.

Assessment of donor satisfaction as an essential part of living donor kidney transplantation: an eleven-year retrospective study

“…Perception of their recipients’ current health status as being low also characterized LKDs that where somewhat dissatisfied. Contrary to our expectations, and previous studies , differences between clusters were statistically significant but such low that seemed to be clinically non‐relevant. To further assess the relevance, its ability to differentiate between clusters was analyzed by ROC curve which showed that donor perception of their recipient's health was unable to differentiate between groups (data not shown).…”

The impact of the donors' and recipients' medical complications on living kidney donors' mental health

“… found an association between unfavorable recipient outcomes and a lower quality of life among donors. Two other studies similarly found that donors who perceived the health status of their recipients as worse had more psychological problems than other donors .…”

Recipient Graft Failure or Death Impact on Living Kidney Donor Quality of Life Based on the Living Organ Donor Network Database

“…12,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] The studies published to date suffer from design limitations and are either retrospective, [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][30][31][32][33][34][35] from a single center, 12,[14][15][16][17][18][24][25][26][28][29][30] or involve fewer than 150 donors. 12,[14][15][16][21][22][23][24][25]…”