Psychosocial aspects of quality of life of hepatic transplant receivers

Abstract

Objective: to assess the psychosocial dimension of patients’ quality of life before and after a hepatic transplantation. Method: descriptive, cross-sectional study of quantitative approach, with 150 patients submitted to a liver transplantation being monitored from the sixth month, in the outpatient clinic of a reference center in hepatic transplantation. The data collection was carried out through an instrument with sociodemographic/clinical data and the Liver Disease Quality of Life questionnaire. The descriptive statistical analysis, Student’s t-test for comparison of domain means, and Games-Howell for multiple comparisons have been used. Results: there was improvement in the post-transplant quality of life in the four domains evaluated (<0.0001),with higher scores for the domains: health distress (55.5 vs 87.9) and stigma of hepatic disease (58.6 vs 93.7). Conclusion: the study has demonstrated that patients submitted to a liver transplantation had a significant improvement in the perception of quality of life regarding the psychosocial dimension, being more perceptive in the areas of health distress and stigma of hepatic disease.