Potential Living Kidney Donors' Health Education Use and Comfort with Donation

Abstract

Context Much living kidney donation research focuses on actual donors rather than all donors who are evaluated by the transplant center. Objective To determine (1) what concerns and benefits potential donors saw possible from donation, (2) how they educated themselves before contacting the transplant center, and (3) who were the most comfortable donors. Design A telephone survey of 91 potential donors before transplant evaluation. Setting Barnes-Jewish Hospital Transplant Center in St Louis, Mo. Main Outcome Measures Willingness and comfort donating, key concerns and perceived benefits to donation, hours of transplant-related education. Results On a 7-point scale, potential donors were very willing (mean=6.65, SD=0.95) and comfortable (mean=6.31, SD=1.12) donating. They were most concerned that their recipients would die if they could not donate, the evaluation and surgery would be anxiety provoking or painful, and they did not understand what donation would require. Donors previously spent an average of 6 hours reading health resources and 32 hours discussing donation. Using logistic regression, those donors with 0 to 4 concerns (odds ratio=7.1, 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.2–23.16), more than 5 benefits (odds ratio=3.7, 95% CI, 1.2–11.0), and who were family members (odds ratio=4.7, 95% CI, 1.4–15.8) were more likely to be extremely comfortable donating compared to others. Conclusions Before evaluation, most potential donors are willing to donate because they think that it is important to improve the health of a loved one. Their knowledge of donation varies and they need clear information about medical testing and support coping with any negative donation outcomes.