Anxiety and Depression: A Comparison between Living and Cadaveric Renal Transplant Recipients

Anxiety and depression are the most common psychological disorders in kidney transplant recipients that may affect disease process and graft survival.

Based on the types of kidney donation in our country, living vs. cadaveric donation, we conducted this study to compare psychological problems in renal recipients.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on kidney transplant recipients who were categorized according to their donors to "living" and "cadaveric" groups. Patients with stable condition were followed monthly in outpatient clinics. The psychological status of each patient was assessed by clinical interview and Spielberg State Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The calculated Cronbach alpha for the reliability of the total scale was 0.95.

We recruited 120 recipients (60 patients in each group of living and cadaveric donor transplantation) for the study. There was no significant difference in demographic data between two studied groups (p>0.05). The mean±SD anxiety score was significantly lower among living transplant recipients compared to cadaveric transplant recipients (80.2±15.2 vs. 86.9±18.8 p=0.03). We also found significant relation between depression score and kind of graft donation (11.6±5.7 in living vs. 16.4±9.4 in cadaveric groups; p<0.005).

Psychological problems such as depression and anxiety are significantly higher in cadaveric than living renal recipients. Periodic psychological evaluations should be recommended for kidney transplant recipients, especially for the cadaveric group.