Anxiety and depression among living kidney donors in tertiary care hospital of low resource country setting Nepal

INTRODUCTION: Kidneys accounted for the majority of transplanted organs worldwide in 2018, according to the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation. Living kidney donors continue to have negative psychosocial effects after donation. We aimed to assess anxiety and depression among Nepalese living kidney donors. METHODS: This was an observational, cross-sectional study conducted from May 2020 to January 2021. All patients who had undergone donor nephrectomy and had completed 6 months of post-donation period were included in the study. Anxiety and depression was assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Fischer exact and chi-square test was used to determine the association between variables and the level of significance was maintained at 5% with p < 0.05 considered statistically significant. RESULTS: A total of 147 kidney donors undergoing nephrectomies were included in the study. Among them 69.4% of participants were female and 55.8% of participants were aged 50 years or more. The prevalence of anxiety and depression among kidney donors was 27.9% and 6.2% respectively. Gender, earner, parental relations, occupation, and educational status were related to symptoms of anxiety among the living kidney donors. Similarly, earner was associated with symptoms of depression. CONCLUSION: In addition to physical health measures, routine evaluations of kidney donors should include assessments of depression and other emotional disorders. The actual issue is to come up with effective treatments for depressive symptoms and to improve health outcomes following kidney donation.