Experiences of Recipients and Living Donors the First Three Days after Kidney Transplantation.

BACKGROUND Living donor transplantation is described as a stressful and complex process for both recipients and donors. Few studies have described the experiences of recipients and donors in the first three post-operative days after living kidney transplantation. OBJECTIVES To explore how recipients and living donors experienced the first three post-operative days after kidney transplantation. DESIGN A qualitative phenomenological-hermeneutic framework was used to uncover the meaning of lived experiences through interpretation of transcribed interviews. PARTICIPANTS Seven dyads of kidney recipients and donors admitted at a Danish university hospital were included from September 2013 to November 2013. APPROACH Fourteen semi-structured qualitative interviews were analysed using Malterud's principles of systematic text condensation. FINDINGS Recipients and donors both experienced post-operative discomfort, though not the same. Both recipients and donors expressed that it gave them peace of mind to be able to follow each other at close hand sharing the same room during the post-operative period. All recipients saw receiving a kidney as a huge gift; donating a kidney gave donors a feeling of satisfaction. CONCLUSION The first three post-operative days were characterised by different types of post-operative discomfort and caring needs. Recipients and donors all experienced benefits from staying in the same room during hospitalisation. All patients in this study were related; this may have influenced their experiences, choices and opinions.