Open AccessThe ELPAT living organ donor Psychosocial Assessment Tool ( EPAT ): from ‘what’ to ‘how’ of psychosocial screening – a pilot study
Author(s) -
Massey Emma K.,
Timmerman Lotte,
Ismail Sohal Y.,
Duerinckx Nathalie,
Lopes Alice,
Maple Hannah,
Mega Inês,
Papachristou Christina,
Dobbels Fabienne
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
transplant international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.998
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1432-2277
pISSN - 0934-0874
DOI - 10.1111/tri.13041
Subject(s) - psychosocial , medicine , checklist , psychopathology , medline , clinical psychology , psychiatry , psychology , political science , law , cognitive psychology
Summary Thorough psychosocial screening of donor candidates is required in order to minimize potential negative consequences and to strive for optimal safety within living donation programmes. We aimed to develop an evidence‐based tool to standardize the psychosocial screening process. Key concepts of psychosocial screening [1][Meier‐Kriesche H‐U, 2002] were used to structure our tool: motivation and decision‐making, personal resources, psychopathology, social resources, ethical and legal factors and information and risk processing. We (i) discussed how each item per concept could be measured, (ii) reviewed and rated available validated tools, (iii) where necessary developed new items, (iv) assessed content validity and (v) pilot‐tested the new items. The resulting ELPAT living organ donor Psychosocial Assessment Tool ( EPAT ) consists of a selection of validated questionnaires (28 items in total), a semi‐structured interview (43 questions) and a Red Flag Checklist. We outline optimal procedures and conditions for implementing this tool. The EPAT and user manual are available from the authors. Use of this tool will standardize the psychosocial screening procedure ensuring that no psychosocial issues are overlooked and ensure that comparable selection criteria are used and facilitate generation of comparable psychosocial data on living donor candidates.