Qualidade de vida e transplante.

Abstract

With the recent development of surgical techniques and other treatments of transplanted patients the increase in survival is not anymore the unique objective of the intervention. Nowadays, increase in quality of life is a very important aim. The instruments that assess quality of life can be multi/unidimensional, specific/nonspecific. One of the most important instruments to evaluate quality of life in all kinds of patients is the MOS-SF36, validated to Portuguese population. According to most published studies, there is an improvement in quality of life dimensions after transplantation. In some prospective studies it is shown that quality of life after transplantation is determined by some pre-transplantation factors such as medical factors (severity of illness) and psychiatric factors (personality, depression, coping strategies).