The goal of this study was to evaluate personality issues and general health in kidney transplantation candidates.Of patients hospitalized in Baqiyatallah Hospital and Labbafinejad Hospital in 2002 waiting for kidney transplantation, 97 were selected by random sampling method. The data was collected using MMPI, GHQ-28 and a checklist of the patients’ demographic information, medical and psychiatric history.
Considering MMPI validity standards, 80 patients were included in research, 43 of whom (53.7%) had at least one psychological disorder. According to the MMPI results, depression was the most frequent psychological disorder in patients. Based on GHQ, social function disorder was the most frequent symptom. The total score of abnormal GHQ was higher in women than in men (p=0.077) and also in those with a history of psychiatric advice seeking than those without this history. There was no meaningful relation between GHQ and age, marital status, education, positive kidney transplantation history and cigarette smoking (p>=0.05). The results of this research suggest that paying attention to the psychological and general health in kidney transplantation candidates seems essential, especially in patients with depression and social function disorder. Also, patients have to be taken under more psychiatric surveillance when they are female, older, with a history of psychiatric advice seeking and with lower education.