Beliefs of Living Donors About Recipients' End-Stage Liver Failure and Surgery for Organ Donation.

BACKGROUND: The concept of beliefs could provide a basis for how donors may perceive recipients' end-stage liver failure (ESLF) and surgery for organ donation. However, there is no such quantitative study. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore beliefs of living donors about recipients' ESLF and surgery for organ donation. METHODS: The sample comprised 16 living donors who donated a part of their liver to a patient who had ESLF. The data were analyzed by following established procedures for inductive qualitative analysis. RESULTS: Analysis showed that donors' beliefs can be viewed in a number of groups. Beliefs about recipients' ESLF included diverse explanations for ESLF (blaming oneself and physicians) and physical symptoms (developmental slowing down). Beliefs about being a donor included reasons for being a donor (performing a good deed, being healed), barriers to being a donor (other people being ignorant and selfish), ways to manage these barriers (following one's gut feeling), and factors facilitating being a donor (the feeling that one does not have many people to leave behind). Beliefs about surgery for organ donation included physical effects (pain, feeling stiff). Beliefs about organ donation included views that general organ donation should be encouraged and that people's awareness should be raised. CONCLUSIONS: Existing psychological perspectives could help to interpret some beliefs. Nevertheless, other beliefs, not previously reported, could be considered as targets for individual consultations/psycho-educational programs for fostering emotional well-being.

Liver Transplantation: Recipients' Evaluation of Life From the Perspective of Living Donors.

AIM: Liver transplantation affects not only recipients and living donors' lives, but also the nature and quality of their relationship. Moreover, the ways in which recipients of liver transplant experience life and views of living donors on how recipients experience life may differ. These differences may account for relational changes. It is also important to understand how recipients and their living donors' views differ if the aim is to devise psychoeducational programs for recipients and living donors. Therefore, the present study examined the recipients' experience of life after a diagnosis of end-stage liver failure (ESLF) and transplantation surgery from donors' perspective. METHODS: The sample consisted of 16 living donors who donated a part of their liver to a patient with ESLF. Thematic analysis was undertaken in parallel with interviews during which an interview guide was followed. FINDINGS: Donors felt that recipients evaluated life after the diagnosis of ESLF and transplantation surgery in terms of limitations, mixed relationships, emotional changes, and improvement in life. CONCLUSION: Experience of social limitations, negative emotions, and the feeling that one is supported by others could be interpreted in terms of existing psychological theory. Some ways of adjusting that have not been reported before within the context of ESLF extended the literature. These included others being frightened of being infected by ESLF and being insensitive, experience of positive emotions, and ways of improving. Overall, compared with findings of previous qualitative work among recipients, our findings suggest that donors' evaluation of recipients' lives converge with that of recipients.