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Meta-analysis on quality of life in living kidney donors

Lieke Wirken, PhD student at the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology unit, in collaboration with her supervisors dr. Henriët van Middendorp and prof. dr Andrea Evers, has published an article in the leading journal American Journal of Transplantation.

Quality of life

In the review and meta-analysis, she describes the current state of affairs with respect to the course and predictors of health-related quality of life after kidney donation in live donors. Her analysis shows that – although shortly after these donors have lower quality of life, especially in physical functioning – long-term quality of life scores were comparable to those found in the general population. Lieke Wirken also looked at the limited number of studies that examined risk factors for lower quality of life. Low psychological functioning before donation appeared to be the most consistent predictor for that.

Recommendations

Wirken and her colleagues conclude that doctors can inform potential kidney donors that donors, on average, have high long-term health-related quality of life. Further, they advise that future studies aim at finding other potentially important predictors of health-related quality of life after donation. In that way, it will be possible to optimize screening of and interventions for donors and  to improve the care of live kidney donors.