Evulation of quality of life before and after liver transplantation

Aim: to investigate factors affecting and the quality of life before and three months after liver transplantation.Methods: This is a descriptive study and included the patients receiving liver transplants from live donors and cadavers in the Surgery and Organ Transplantation clinics of two university hospitals between May 2007 and June 2007. Approval was obtained from the ethical committee and the participants gave written informed consent. Inclusion criteria were sufficient cognitive functions and ability to communicate in Turkish. Exclusion criteria were functional limitations and psychiatric diseases. Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) was used to evaluate the quality of life, Patient Description Form to determine patient characteristics and Model for end Stage Liver Disease (MELD) to determine disease severity before liver transplantation. The data of study were analysed with t testi, Man Whitney U test, Wilcoxan test and Kruskall Wallis variance analysis. The power of study is estimated by independent variables t test. The power for subscales of NHP was 97% for pain, 89% for energy level, 84% for emotional reaction, 82% for physical mobility, 83% for social isolation and 89% for sleep.Results: There was a significant difference between all subscales of NHP before and three months after liver transplantations (p<.05). Based on the differences between the mean scores for the quality of life before and three months after transplantations, there was a significant difference between gender and pain and between disease severity and pain, energy level, emotional reaction, physical mobility and social isolation (p<.05).Conclusion: Liver transplantations improved the quality of life to patients. Longitudinal surveies and qualitative studies are needed to investigate the quality of life of liver transplant recipients in their socio-cultural environments.Key Words: Liver transplantation, Nottingham Healt Profile, Quality of life, Nursing