Health status of the patients before lung transplantation: a report from Iran

Breathing is essential for living. When someone is a lung transplantation candidate, it could be imagined that the breathing difficulties that he/she is experiencing has a great impact on his/her health status.

We asked all the patients on the lung transplantation waiting list at Masih Daneshvari Hospital to complete the validated Iranian version of Global Health Questionnaire (GHQ). It was the 28-item version of the questionnaire with scores ranging from 0 to 84. Patients filled the questionnaire while on routine out-patients visits. The higher scores represent greater distress.

Seventy patients were requested to participate in the present study out of which 64 filled the questionnaire completely. Mean +/-SD (min-max) scores of the questionnaire subscales were as follows: somatic symptoms =8.2+/-4.2; anxiety =8.1+/-4.9; 8-14, depression =4+/-4.2; social dysfunction =10.4+/-4 and the overall score =30.6+/-9.5. There was no significant difference in the subscales of the questionnaire based on gender and disease type. Higher age was associated with less social dysfunction (r=-273, p=0.023). Higher level of prednisolone consumption and lower hemoglobin were associated with poorer somatic status (r=0.644, p=0.033; r=-0.410, 0.030 respectively).

Our findings indicate that lung transplantation candidates have extremely poor health state. It seems that pulmonary problems and activity limitations put more pressure on younger patients and causes social difficulties.