신장이식수술전 신장 공여자의 정신적 특성

The Psychiatric Characteristics of Kidney Donors Before Transplantation

The authors investigated the psychiatric characteristics(the psychological problems and dailylife satisfactions) of 29 living kidney donors before the transplantation. Psychological tests(State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Becks Depression Inventory, and Life Satisfaction Scale) were carried out and semi-structured interview forms were distributed 1-2 weeks before renal transplantation. The results were as follows ； 1) The semi-structured interview form concerned with the reasons and types of donor revealed that more than 70%(21/29) donated their kidney by their own free will. As for the donor-recipient relationship, 12 of donors were occupied by his or her parents, 8 by siblings, 3 by children, 1 by spouse, and 3 by distant relatives, respectively. 2) There were no significant differences in the level of anxiety and depression between living kidney donors and the controls. 3) Living kidney donors showed significantly higher satisfaction scale scores in the items of health’，feeling good about your-self’，being appreciated by others’ and your home’ as compared with the controls. 4) The internally controlled group of living kidney donors showed significantly lower scores on trait anxiety as compared with the externally controlled group. In conclusion, the living kidney donors appear to be not more anxious or depressive than the healthy controls. Furthermore, they rated their daily life satisfactions rather high, and this could be one of the positive impact upon the donors’ life following the kidney transplantation. To investigate whether these positive results are sustained after transplantation, further posttransplant follow-up study on the psychological state of the donors is in order.