Quality of life and psychiatric disorders before and one year after liver transplantation

Abstract

Aim: Liver transplantation (LT) is a challenging operation with a burden affecting patients, families, and donors. The aim of the study was to compare the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and symptoms, and the quality of life of patients waiting for LT, with patients one year after transplantation. Material and Method: The patients in the LT waiting list (n: 68), and the outpatients evaluated for routine controls twelve months after LT (n: 53) were included in the study.Thus, patients were evaluated cross-sectionally in two groups: the pretransplantation group (PrTG) and the post-transplantation group (PsTG). The patients were administered the Receiver Sociodemographic Data Form, Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36), Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-1), and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Results: There was no difference by means of the sociodemographic and clinical variables between the two groups. The PrTG showed significantly lower levels in all of the SF-36 scores except the mental health subscale when compared to the PsTG.Current psychiatric disorder was found in 29.4% of the PrTG while in 20.8% of the PsTG. There was no significant difference in the prevalences of psychiatric disorders between the groups. Discussion: Liver transplantation provides improvement in most of the domains of the quality of life of patients except the mental health domain. After LT, patients continue to be under risk of psychiatric disorders even later in the follow-up.