Temperament and character in living kidney donors

Objective: Kidney transplantation is the best exclusive treatment of renal failure. The number of kidney transplantations from cadavers are inadequate, therefore living organ donors are seen as the most important source for transplantation. At present, studies on the psychiatric conditions and personality features of donors are inadequate. In this research, we aimed to explore personality features of living kidney donors.

Methods: Thirty-three donors involved in the transplantation process as kidney donors in Ataturk University’s Organ Transplantation Unit participated in the study. Sociodemographic data of the donors was recorded and the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was administered. The results gathered were compared with measurements which have been standardized for the Turkish community (2). The main subscales of the Temperament and Character Inventory are novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, persistence, self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. Except for persistence, all main subscales have their own subscales. For the statistical analysis, independent sample t-tests and chi-square analysis were used. P<0.05 was accepted as statistical significance level.

Results: Twenty-one female and 12 male kidney donors completed the study. 90% of the donors are married, 72.7% have a low income level. In the temperament dimension, donors’ novelty seeking score is found to be significantly lower than the mean Turkish community scores. Exploratory excitability and extravagance scores were found to be lower than the mean Turkish community scores when the novelty seeking subscales were examined. In the temperament dimension, shyness and attachment subscale scores of the donors were lower than the Turkish community scores. Openness to warm communication and compassion subscale scores of the donors were higher than the Turkish community scores. In the character dimension, self-directedness and enlightened second nature scores were lower in donors. Self-transcendence and transpersonal identification scores of the donors were higher than the Turkish community scores.

Conclusion: In our study, the number of female donors were higher than males. This might be because of the compassionate and dedicating features of female and maternal nature. Some of the results like high score of a self-transcendence, transpersonal identification and compassion scores and lower score of attachment subscales might be expected from donors, because being a donor is difficult to accept and most of the living donors were close relatives or loved ones. The lower self-directedness scale scores detected in donors were a surprising finding, because according to Cloninger’s hypothesis, the self-directedness group is identified as having irresponsible, incriminating characteristics. We wonder how they can accept being a kidney donor? We think that more studies are needed on this topic.