Exploring donors' and recipients' attitudes about living donor kidney transplantation.

CONTEXT: There is a growing interest in living donor kidney transplantation because of its potential to reduce the current kidney shortage.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the experience of potential recipients, recipients, potential donors, and donors with regard to living donor kidney transplantation and laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy.

METHOD: Twenty-five patients participated in a series of focus group interviews. The interviews were tape-recorded and a content analysis was performed.

RESULTS: All participants had a positive attitude toward living donor kidney transplantation and laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy, though this procedure was not a factor that influenced potential donors' decision to donate a kidney. None of the potential donors and donors felt coerced into giving a kidney; they were motivated by a desire to help a loved one who was suffering. The main perceived impediment to donate a kidney was the potential recipients' reluctance to accept the offer. Potential recipients and recipients found it difficult to ask for a kidney and worried about the consequences of a kidney removal on their donor's health. A potential barrier to living donor kidney transplantation was that recipients would never have accepted a kidney if their donor had to pay for the kidney removal. In addition, recipients believed that a kidney from a non-blood-related donor was not as a good a match as a kidney from a blood-related donor.

CONCLUSION: This exploratory study reveals that donors, potential donors, recipients, and potential recipients had an overall positive attitude toward living donor kidney transplantation and laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy. This study also sheds light on a number of barriers that have not been previously reported.