Compliance with recommended life style behaviors in kidney transplant recipients: does it matter in living donor kidney transplant?

INTRODUCTION Lifestyle after transplantation is the key link between transplantation and its outcome, and it is crucial to comply with the recommended life style behaviors. Our aim was to assess the compliance of kidney transplant recipients to the recommended life style behaviors in Mansoura, Egypt. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred kidney transplant patients were surveyed on their compliance with the recommended lifestyle behaviors including transplant medications, preventing from infections, diet, exercise, regular medical visits, personal hygiene, sexual activity, and cancer prevention. RESULTS Most of the kidney recipients were compliant with the immunosuppressants. One-third of the participants were compliant with low-salt diet. Noncompliance with annual dental and eye checkup was reported in the majority of the subjects 94.0%. Compliance with infection prevention was partial. Half of the patient had a poor compliance with exercise or were not complying the recommendations at all. Only 9.0% of the patients were avoiding sun exposure. The majority of women were not compliant with breast self-examination. One-third of the patients consulted with their nephrologists about their sexual problems, and only half of the women were compliant with family planning program. The women were less compliant than men with medications (P = .02), and poor compliance with medications was more frequent among those with living unrelated donors (P = .04). CONCLUSIONS Our kidney transplant patients had good compliance with immunosuppressive medications, but not with most of the recommended behaviors. Intensive assessment of patients before and after transplantation should be done to identify their needs which help planning to improve their compliance.