Impact of Health Related Quality of Life in Catalonia Liver Transplant Patients

Abstract Objective Our aim was to study the changes in the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) during the first year following liver transplantation. Materials and Methods Among 159 patients awaiting orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) who were prospectively studied at 4 hospitals in Catalonia, 108 actually obtained an organ. HRQoL over time, namely, before, as well as at 3 and 12 months after transplantation, was recorded using the Short Form-36 (SF-36) and the Liver Disease Quality of Life (LDQOL 1.0). After we searched medical, clinical, and sociodemographic records to examine the studied variables on the HRQoL at each moment, the significance was explored using t tests and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results Comparison of the SF-36 dimensions before and at 3 months after transplantation revealed almost all domains to show significant improvements ( P P P P P Conclusions The most important finding in this study was that all domains showed significant improvements in HRQoL at 3 months after transplantation with only slight improvements at 12 months.