Table 1 Professional guidelines for the inclusion of psychosocial factors in transplant eligibility criteria

American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (2013)

Liver

Absolute contraindications:

• None

Relative contraindications:

• Psychiatric illness: “There is no psychiatric disorder that is an absolute contraindication to transplantation” [8].

• Medical noncompliance: “Patients should be evaluated for and meet reasonable expectations for adherence to medical directives and mental health stability” [8].

• Poor social support: “Patients should have adequate social/caregiver support to provides the necessary assistance both while waitlisted and until independently functioning in the postoperative period” [8].

International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation

(2016)

Heart

Absolute contraindications:

• Medical noncompliance: “Patients who have demonstrated an inability to comply with drug therapy on multiple occasions should not receive transplantation” [9].

Relative contraindications:

• Poor social support: “Any patient for whom social supports are deemed insufficient to achieve compliant care in the outpatient setting may be regarded as having a relative contraindication to transplant” [9].

International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation

(2014)

Lung

Absolute contraindications:

• Medical noncompliance: “Psychiatric conditions associated with the inability to cooperate with the medical/allied health care team and/or adhere with complex medical therapy” [10].

• Poor social support: “Absence of an adequate or reliable social support system” [10].

Relative contraindications:

• None

American Society of Transplantation

(2001)

Kidney

Absolute contraindications:

• None

Relative contraindications:

• Psychiatric illness: “Renal transplant candidates with a history of mental illness should undergo evaluation, counseling and, if necessary, treatment by appropriate mental health professionals prior to transplantation” [11].

• Medical noncompliance: “It is reasonable to delay transplantation for patients who, despite interventions, are not able to improve life-threatening, noncompliant behaviors” [11].