Suffer from Dialysis as a Predictor of Mental Health Among Kidney Transplant Recipients: a Preliminary Longitudinal Study

Kidney transplant (KT) recipients are exposed to extreme physiological and psychological stressors, which make posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms a reasonable concern for this population. In this preliminary longitudinal study, we aimed to explore whether dialysis’s duration and level of suffering from dialysis contribute to the explained variance of post-transplant PTSD symptomatology among KT recipients. One hundred and four consecutive KT recipients (wave 1) were surveyed and approached again (wave 2, N = 61) with the same measurement tools. The results revealed that the main predictor of mental health incidents in wave 1 and wave 2 was suffering from dialysis.