Lee YS, Koh CK, Yi NJ, Suh KS, Lee KW. Does living liver donors' underestimation about surgical outcomes impact on their health-related quality of life after donation?: a descriptive cross-sectional study.
Health Qual Life Outcomes 2022;
20:146. [PMID:
36280848 PMCID:
PMC9594971 DOI:
10.1186/s12955-022-02055-0]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2022] [Revised: 09/16/2022] [Accepted: 10/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background
In South Korea, the number of living-donor liver transplantations in 2019 was 1,188. Living liver donors (LLDs) undergo surgery and the postoperative recovery process for altruistic purposes. This study explored LLDs’ unmet expectations about surgical outcomes and examined their impact on the donors’ health-related quality of life (HRQOL).
Methods
This descriptive cross-sectional study utilized a self-reported survey. Data were collected at a university hospital in Seoul, South Korea. Among the 535 LLDs who underwent surgery for donation between January 2011 and March 2021, 124 participated in this study. The Korean version of the 12-item Short Form Health Survey version 2 (SF-12v2) was used to measure the HRQOL of LLDs. Unmet expectations regarding surgical outcomes were measured using four items: pain, length of hospital stay, speed of recovery, and complications. Logistic regression model was applied to determine whether the unmet expectations influence HRQOL in LLDs. Odds ratios with 95% confidence interval were used.
Results
The percentage of the participants who reported that their actual experiences for pain, speed of recovery, hospital stay, and complications were worse than expected were 34.7%, 22.6%, 9.7%, and 7.3%, respectively. Unmet expectations about surgical outcomes were significantly associated with physical and mental HRQOL after controlling for age, sex, education level, income, postoperative complications, recipients’ death, time since donation, and satisfaction with the decision to donate.
Conclusion
LLDs should be supported in obtaining more accurate and realistic information about surgical outcomes to decrease unmet expectations, which may help improve their quality of life.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12955-022-02055-0.
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