UNOS DonateLife

June 19, 2007

Guidelines for psychosocial evaluation of potential living unrelated donors

To:  Program Directors, Transplant Coordinators and Social Workers at living kidney, liver and lung transplant programs; UNOS Board of Directors; UNOS Committee Chairs; and Psychosocial Conference participants

From:  Sue McDiarmid, M.D., OPTN/UNOS President

Re:  Guidelines for psychosocial evaluation of potential living unrelated donors

You may well be aware of, or even taken part in, the May 2006 conference to develop guidelines for the psychosocial evaluation of potential living unrelated kidney donors. UNOS, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American Society of Transplantation jointly sponsored the meeting. A recent edition of the American Journal of Transplantation contains a report of that conference and the recommendations of its participants.

A number of experts involved in living donor evaluation believe the guidelines represent a significant advance in identifying key characteristics of psychosocial risk in potential living donors and principles of evaluation and informed consent. While the conference specifically addressed potential living kidney donors, these guidelines may be helpful in evaluation of potential living donors of other organs as well.

This article is made freely available by the American Society of Transplantation (AST), American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS), and Wiley-Blackwell. It is available for viewing or download as an Adobe PDF document by accessing the link below:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1600-6143.2007.01751.x

The citation is Dew MA, Jacobs CL, Jowsey SG et al. Guidelines for the Psychosocial Evaluation of Living Unrelated Kidney Donors in the United States. Am J Transplant 2007; 7:1047-1054.

We encourage you to read this report and consider these guidelines in relation to your program's protocols for living donor evaluation and consent. The transplant community can best serve needs and interests of the potential living donor through consistent application of well-designed protocols.