The importance of long-term follow-up visits for kidney donors.

Background: This paper examined the importance and influence of post-transplantation follow-up visits on the quality-of-life (QoL) of living kidney donors in Malaysia. Methods: Based on data collected from 80 living kidney donors, the relationship between QoL and the frequency of follow-up visits was examined. QoL was measured using standard SF-8 questions to capture its different dimensions. Results: Donors in the 1991–1998 donation cohort have low QoL, especially in the domains of physical and vitality, compared with the other two cohorts (1999–2005 and 2006–2012). The mean scores showed that donors who never went for any follow-up activities visits experience low QoL in most of the categories, particularly those related to physical activities, implying the importance of follow-up activities visits in influencing the donors’ QoL. Lower QoL was recorded for respondents that never received post-transplant treatment. Conclusion: Although this study found no serious post-transplant QoL issues in Malaysia, it is still important to set up a donor registry and provide free and mandatory follow-up visits for all donors in order to adequately monitor their health.