Depressive, Anxiety, and Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms in Pediatric Liver Transplant Recipients: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives: Pediatric liver transplant recipients may experience depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms despite favorable medical outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and post-traumatic stress symptoms among pediatric liver transplant recipients and to examine the relationships among these psychological outcomes.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted with 50 pediatric liver transplant recipients aged 8–18 years who were followed at a liver transplant center. Data were collected using the Child Descriptive Information Form, the Children's Depression Inven-tory (CDI), the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED), and the Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES-13). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Mann–Whitney U tests, Spearman correlation analyses, and multiple linear regression analyses.
Results: A considerable number of participants exhibited clinically relevant psychological difficulties. Anxiety scores differed significantly according to sex. Recipients of deceased-donor transplants had significantly higher post-traumatic stress symptom scores than recipients of living-donor transplants. Emotional and psychological distress levels decreased as the time elapsed since transplantation increased. Correlation analyses indicated significant associations among the measured mental health outcomes. Furthermore, trauma-related symp-toms emerged as significant predictors of emotional difficulties after adjustment for age, sex, and post-transplant duration.
Conclusion: Psychological symptoms were observed among pediatric liver transplant recipients, and significant associations were identified among depression, anxiety, and trauma-related symptoms. These findings support the potential value of routine psycho-social assessment during post-transplant follow-up. Further longitudinal studies are needed to clarify the temporal relationships among these psychological outcomes.

Keywords: Anxiety, depression, mental health needs, pediatric liver transplantation, post-traumatic stress symptoms