Brittany Acheampong
Supervisor(s): Dr. Shaifali Sandal
Award: KRESCENT Summer Studentship
Institution: McGill University
Year: 2026
Project Title: Understanding How Living Kidney Donors Are Evaluated Across Canada: A National Review of Pre-Donation Psychosocial Assessment Practices
Biography
Brittany Acheampong is a second-year medical student at McGill University and former registered nurse with experience in critical care and community health. She is passionate about health equity, preventive medicine, and improving access to healthcare for underserved communities. Brittany is the Founder and Co-President of WAHI (Wellness, Awareness & Health Initiative), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting health education, disease prevention, and community wellness through culturally responsive outreach and advocacy. Through her clinical, academic, and leadership experiences, she remains committed to advancing patient-centered care and empowering communities to live healthier lives.
Lay Summary
Background: Living kidney donation gives people with kidney failure the opportunity to receive a kidney transplant sooner and often leads to better health outcomes than waiting for a deceased donor kidney. Before someone donates a kidney, healthcare teams carefully assess whether donation is safe for both the donor and the recipient.
This assessment includes more than medical tests. Potential donors also complete a psychosocial evaluation, which looks at factors such as mental health, social support, motivation for donating, financial concerns, and whether they fully understand the risks and benefits of donation. This evaluation helps ensure that donors are making an informed and voluntary decision and that they have the support they need before and after donation.
Although every transplant program in Canada performs a psychosocial evaluation before donation, we know very little about how these assessments are carried out from one program to another. Understanding current practices may help identify similarities, differences, and opportunities to improve consistency across Canada.
Purpose: The purpose of our study is to better understand how pre-donation psychosocial evaluations are conducted for living kidney donor candidates across Canadian transplant programs.
By describing current practices, we hope to identify common approaches, understand where programs differ, and provide information that may help improve the consistency and quality of donor assessments across the country.
Methods: We will conduct a national review of current psychosocial evaluation practices for living kidney donor candidates across Canadian transplant programs.
To do this, we will gather information from several sources. First, we will review information that has already been collected through interviews with transplant professionals. Next, we will examine publicly available documents, such as program policies and educational materials. Finally, we will contact transplant programs across Canada to confirm their current practices and request additional information when needed.
We will collect information about who performs the psychosocial evaluation, when it takes place, the tools or questionnaires that are used, and the topics discussed during the assessment. These topics may include mental health, social support, donor motivation, financial and employment concerns, substance use, understanding of the donation process, and whether donors are making their decision freely without pressure from others.
We will summarize and compare the information from each transplant program to better understand current practices across Canada.
Anticipated Outcomes: We expect this study to provide the first national description of pre-donation psychosocial evaluation practices for living kidney donors in Canada.
We anticipate identifying both similarities and differences among transplant programs. These findings may highlight opportunities to share best practices and improve consistency in donor evaluation across the country.
We also expect the results to contribute to future research, be presented at scientific meetings, and be prepared for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Patient Engagement: This study does not include direct patient engagement because it focuses on reviewing existing information and gathering details about current practices from transplant programs. As a result, opportunities for direct patient involvement are limited.
However, the study addresses an important part of the living donation process that directly affects potential donors. By improving our understanding of current psychosocial evaluation practices, we hope our findings will support future efforts to strengthen donor care and improve the donation experience.
Relevance to Patients and the Community: Living kidney donors make an extraordinary contribution by helping another person receive a life-changing transplant. It is important that every donor receives a thorough and supportive psychosocial evaluation before donation.
By describing how these assessments are currently performed across Canada, our study may help identify best practices and areas where programs can learn from one another. In the future, this information could support the development of more consistent, equitable, and patient-centred approaches to donor evaluation.
Ultimately, our goal is to help ensure that every living kidney donor receives high-quality psychosocial care, regardless of where they are evaluated.
Conclusion: Our study will provide valuable information about how pre-donation psychosocial evaluations are currently conducted across Canadian transplant programs. By describing existing practices and identifying areas of variation, we hope to inform future research, support improvements in clinical practice, and contribute to the development of more consistent approaches to living kidney donor evaluation.
In the long term, this work has the potential to strengthen the living kidney donation process and improve the experience and well-being of future donors.
Glossary:
Living kidney donor: A healthy person who donates one of their kidneys to someone with kidney failure.
Psychosocial evaluation: An assessment that examines a person's emotional well-being, social support, motivation, and other personal factors to help determine whether living kidney donation is appropriate and safe.
Transplant program: A hospital or healthcare centre that evaluates donors and recipients and performs organ transplants.