ABSTRACT
These long-time barriers to widespread use of living organ donation, and the resulting desire of transplant professionals to ensure that undesirable risks to donors are minimized, have led to a major focus in most transplant programs on extensive predonation psychosocial evaluation of potential donors, as well as a growing research literature on post-donation psychosocial costs and benefits to living organ donors. This chapter reviews the predonation evaluation issues that are critical when considering the psychosocial eligibility of potential donors, as well as the post-donation data on donor psychosocial outcomes. (See other chapters in this text for discussions of ethical issues in living donor evaluation, financial issues, and medical outcomes in living donors.) Before addressing the central psychosocial issues, we provide a brief overview of the broad social and psychological context in which the donation of living organs takes place, considering both the key elements of the unique gift-giving relationship between the donor and recipient, and the nature of the medical altruism that allows this relationship to develop.
