Background: Our cross-sectional study aimed to explore the existence of depressive symptoms among orthotopic liver transplantation recipients and to investigate how depressive symptoms are linked to health-related quality of life, sexual satisfaction and cognitive performance.
Methods: We recruited 76 liver transplantation recipients. All patients were treated at the Department of Surgery, Division of Transplantation Surgery, University of Medicine of Graz, Graz, Austria. The psychometric observer-rating scale Hamilton Depression Scale was administered to evaluate depressive symptoms. Cognitive performance was based on the SKT. The data on health-related quality of life were obtained from the SF-36 and the data on sexual satisfaction were obtained from the FLZ.
Results: After the orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) 53,9% (n = 41) of the sample suffered from depressive symptoms. Impaired sexual functioning and impaired cognitive performance are a common feature in liver transplantation recipients with depressive symptoms. In the sample of patients suffering from depressive symptoms significant impairments in health-related quality of life were found in all SF-36 domains.
Conclusions: Liver transplantation recipients may face a major risk of liver transplantation-related depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms are highly associated with impairments in quality of life, sexual satisfaction and cognitive performance.