Background.

There has been a lack of systematic in-depth research on the motives of living liver donors before transplantation that could contribute to an advanced understanding of their situation and to a more precise psychosocial evaluation, to protect the autonomy for decision, and to prevent psychosocial complications.

Methods.

Twenty-eight living liver donors were assessed preoperatively through a semistructured clinical interview. The taped and transcribed interviews were analyzed using a combination of grounded theory and empirically grounded type construction.

Results.

Various factors contribute to the donor’s motivation for donation: the relationship to the recipient, the personal attitude of the donor, his or her personal history, family dynamics, the donor’s personal profit, and the exceptional situation of the recipient’s life-threatening disease combined with the life-rescuing possibility of living-donor liver transplantation (LDLT). In reference to this, five “ideal types” of living donors emerged from the authors’ data.

Conclusions.

A complete absence of coercion on the decision to donate seems unrealistic because of the dynamics initiated by the life-threatening condition of the recipient. It is important that donors feel they are gaining something by donation to be sufficiently motivated and that their profit is of an emotional or moral nature (ie, the donation being set in an emotionally meaningful context). A mature relationship with the recipient usually provides such a context. The role of the clinician as a part of LDLT dynamics has a decisive influence.