FRIDAY, June 1, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Concerns expressed by living kidney donors include kidney failure and function, as well as the surgical, lifestyle, and psychosocial impact of donation, according to a study published online May 31 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Camilla S. Hanson, Ph.D., from the University of Sydney, and colleagues sampled previous donors from three transplant units in Canada and Australia and examined outcomes of donation in focus groups. The outcomes were ranked in order of importance, and an importance score was calculated for each outcome.
The researchers found that the 123 donors (aged 27 to 78 years) identified 35 outcomes across 14 groups. The 10 highest ranked outcomes across all participants were kidney function, time to recovery, surgical complications, impact on family, donor-recipient relationship, life satisfaction, lifestyle restriction, kidney failure, mortality, and acute pain/discomfort. Compared with Australian donors, Canadian participants ranked kidney function and kidney failure as more important. Worthwhile sacrifice, insignificance of risks and harms, confidence and empowerment, unfulfilled expectations, and heightened susceptibility were identified as themes in qualitative data analysis.
“More than anything, this work demonstrates that we cannot simply assume we know what donors care and worry about,” write the authors of an accompanying editorial. “We must talk with them about their priorities and concerns both before and after surgery.”
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