title: The live donor assessment tool: a psychosocial assessment tool for live organ donors.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Psychosocial evaluation is an important part of the live organ donor evaluation process, yet it is not standardized across institutions, and although tools exist for the psychosocial evaluation of organ recipients, none exist to assess donors.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We set out to develop a semistructured psychosocial evaluation tool (the Live Donor Assessment Tool, LDAT) to assess potential live organ donors and to conduct preliminary analyses of the tool's reliability and validity.
  
  
  METHODS
  Review of the literature on the psychosocial variables associated with treatment adherence, quality of life, live organ donation outcome, and resilience, as well as review of the procedures for psychosocial evaluation at our center and other centers around the country, identified 9 domains to address; these domains were distilled into several items each, in collaboration with colleagues at transplant centers across the country, for a total of 29 items. Four raters were trained to use the LDAT, and they retrospectively scored 99 psychosocial evaluations conducted on live organ donor candidates. Reliability of the LDAT was assessed by calculating the internal consistency of the items in the scale and interrater reliability between raters; validity was estimated by comparing LDAT scores between those with a "positive" evaluation outcome and "negative" outcome.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The LDAT was found to have good internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and showed signs of validity: LDAT scores differentiated the positive vs. negative outcome groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The LDAT demonstrated good reliability and validity, but future research on the LDAT and the ability to implement the LDAT prospectively is warranted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY. Electronic address: brian.iacoviello@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Brian M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Iacoviello
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY; Recanati-Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Akhil
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shenoy
authors.affiliation: Recanati-Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Jenna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Braoude
authors.affiliation: Recanati-Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Tiane
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jennings
authors.affiliation: Recanati-Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Swapna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vaidya
authors.affiliation: Recanati-Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Julianna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brouwer
authors.affiliation: Recanati-Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Brandy
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Haydel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Hansel
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Arroyo
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Devendra
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Thakur
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leinwand
authors.affiliation: Recanati-Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Dianne LaPointe
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Rudow
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006498:Hepatectomy / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000523:psychology; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000523:psychology; D019520:Living Donors / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D009392:Nephrectomy / Q000523:psychology*; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012944:Social Support