ORIGINAL RESEARCH Psychosocial Outcomes of Donors Whose Recipients Died After Living Donor Liver Transplantation Mukadder Ispir 1 & Birgul Cumhur 2 & Tolga Sahin 1 & Emrah Otan 1 & Cuneyt Kayaalp 1 & Sezai Yilmaz 1 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Purpose Our aim was to investigate the psychosocial outcomes of the donors whose recipients died after living donor liver transplantation (LDLT). Methods Forty-one donors whose recipients died and 87 donors whose recipients were alive after LDLT at Inonu University Liver Transplantation Institute between 2012 and 2017 were included into the study. Demographic data form, Beck anxiety scale, Beck depression scale, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, Decision Regret Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and general evaluation questionnaire (24 questions) were used in all donors by face to face questioning. In addition to the descriptive statistical analysis, chi-square and student’s t tests were used to evaluate the differences between the groups. Results Recipient death after living donor liver transplantation is a factor that negatively increases the level of anxiety, depres- sion, hopelessness levels, and repentance of donors, and adversely affects the psychological growth of the donors after donation experience. Conclusion Regular follow-up of the donors should be done psychosocially in the postoperative period, especially the donors whose recipients have died should be followed up more frequently, and their support and treatment should be provided when needed. The donors should also be informed about the psychosocial implications of operative management and postoperative period. More studies are needed regarding the psychosocial problems of the donors. Keywords Living donor liver transplantation . Donors . Recipient death . Psychosocial outcome Abbreviations BAS Beck’s Anxiety Scale BDS Beck’s Depression Scale DRS Decision Regret Scale LDH Live donor hepatectomy LDLT Living donor liver transplantation LLD Live liver donor LT Liver transplantation Mean ± SD Mean ± standard deviation MPSSS Multi-Dimensionally Perceived Social Support Scale PTGI Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory THS The Hopelessness Scale Introduction The first liver transplantation (LT) was performed nearly 60 years ago by Thomas E. Starzl, and it became the gold standard treatment for patients with end stage liver disease [1]. The cadaveric organ supply is overwhelmed by the in- creasing patient numbers. Therefore, in many Middle East and Asian countries, practice living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) to deal with the organ supply because organ donation is not improving due to various reasons including religious, socioeconomic, and cultural characteristics of the countries [2]. Living donor liver transplantation has its pitfalls; one of which is the operative risk of a completely healthy individual because live donor hepatectomy (LDH) is a major operation and the healthy subject is taking the risk to save a patient (i.e., * Sezai Yilmaz sezai.yilmaz@inonu.edu.tr 1 Liver Transplant Institute, Inonu University, Elazig Yolu 10. Km, 44280 Malatya, Turkey 2 Department of Psychiatry, Inonu University Faculty of Medicine, 244280 Malatya, Turkey Journal of Gastrointestinal Cancer https://doi.org/10.1007/s12029-020-00496-8