Impact of coronavirus infection on anxiety and quality of life in individuals with a kidney transplant

Abstract

Background: The consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the mental health of kidney transplant recipients have not yet been investigated. Objectives: This study compares anxiety and quality of life in individuals with a kidney transplant who did or did not test positive for coronavirus. Design: Retrospective study of two prospective cohorts. Participants: Kidney transplant recipients under follow-up in a Spanish tertiary teaching hospital who tested positive for coronavirus (cases); and consecutive kidney recipients who had not suffered the infection (not-cases). Methods: Mortality and case fatality data were compared between the two cohorts for the two pandemic waves. For the second wave (July 1 to December 5, 2020), the data compared between cases (n=22) and not-cases (n=36) were state and trait anxiety (STAI), kidney transplant-related quality of life (KTQ), and mortality as the main outcome variables.  Results: 601 transplanted persons of mean age 61.7 years (SD 12.8), 61.9% men. 12.1% (n=73) tested SARS-CoV-2-positive over the first two pandemic waves with a mortality of 2.9% and case fatality of 24.7%. Over the second wave, the mean quality of life score was 4.1 (SD 0.9) and the overall anxiety score was 49 (SD 24.3) for the two cohorts, which did not vary in terms of the impacts of these measures on the descriptive variables examined. Conclusions: Quality of life is invariably affected, and levels of anxiety are high regardless of whether or not they have had a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Over the period examined, mortality was low while coronavirus case fatality was high.