Mood Status and Quality of Life in Kidney Recipients After Transplantation.

BACKGROUND: Kidney transplantation is performed as a useful treatment to improve the quality of life (QOL) of patients with end-stage renal failure; however, the correlation between mood status and QOL among recipients post-kidney transplantation have yet to be clarified. METHODS: Sixty-eight post-kidney transplantation patients who visited our institution between March and December 2016 were enrolled in this study. The QOL of the participants as measured by the Short Form-36 Health Survey Version 2 (SF-36v2) questionnaire was compared to results gathered from hemodialysis patients in a previous study. To identify the factors associated with QOL, a multiple regression analysis was performed, including some physical, mental, and socioeconomic characteristics as well as the Profile of Mood States as independent variables. RESULTS: The QOL of the transplantation group was significantly higher for all 8 subscales of SF-36v2 compared to the hemodialysis group. Among the factors, greater age and higher Confusion levels were related to lower physical QOL. In addition, higher Vigor and lower Fatigue levels were related to higher mental QOL, while the condition of having an occupation was related to higher role/social QOL. CONCLUSION: The QOL of recipients after kidney transplantation was better than that of hemodialysis patients. It is important to pay attention to mood status, especially confusion and fatigue, in order to maintain and improve the QOL of the recipient after kidney transplantation. Kidney transplantation can be a beneficial treatment not only physically but also psychologically and socially.

Pre-operative Assessment of Psychological Characteristics and Mood States in Living Donor Kidney and Liver Transplantation.

BACKGROUND: Past studies have indicated that psychological problems in both transplant recipients and donors increase during the pre-operative period. However, few studies have evaluated the pre-operative psychological status of both the recipient and the donor. METHODS: This study included the donors and recipients of 36 adult living donor kidney transplants (LDKT) and 12 adult living donor liver transplants (LDLT) between January 2012 and December 2014. Their personalities were assessed using the Tokyo University Egogram (TEG) and the Yatabe-Guilford Personality Inventory (Y-G), while their mood states just before transplantation were evaluated via the Profile of Mood States (POMS). RESULTS: On the TEG, the mean Adapted Child (AC) score of the LDLT recipient group was significantly lower than that of the LDKT recipient group. On the Y-G, no differences in the distribution of the five personality types were recognized among the four groups. POMS depression scores in the LDLT recipient group were significantly higher compared with the other groups. CONCLUSION: LDLT recipients exhibited a depressive mood just before transplantation, and also had a low AC score. Therefore, clinicians should pay careful attention to potential medical non-adherence and post-operative depression in LDLT recipients. Based on these pre-operative assessments of personality and mood states, the transplant team should include post-operative care to support the quality of life of the recipients as well as the donors.