Incidence and prevalence of depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms among adult liver transplant recipients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Psychological morbidity among transplant recipients may negatively impact post-transplantation outcomes. Our objectives were to compute pooled incidence and prevalence estimates for depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms among adults who underwent liver transplant. Electronic searches of MEDLINE, PubMed Central, CINAHL, and Google Scholar were carried out from inception to October 2022 to identify observational studies conducted among adult liver transplant recipients which measured depression, anxiety, and/or insomnia. We used the Joanna-Briggs tool for study quality appraisal. Sixty-five studies (pooled N = 12,183) provided data for meta-analysis. The one-year pooled point prevalence rate for depressive symptoms was 25% (95% Confidence Intervals [CI]: 20% to 30%; I2 = 94%; 37 studies; N = 6088) while that of anxiety and insomnia symptoms were 29% (95% CI: 21% to 38%; I2 = 96%; 28 studies; N = 4016) and 28% (95% CI: 16% to 43%; I2 = 98%; 14 studies; N = 1834), respectively. The findings remained robust across subgroup and sensitivity analyses. Most included studies had low or moderate risk of bias. Depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms are commonly prevalent following liver transplantation. Our findings, though limited by high heterogeneity across analyses, have important implications for screening, management, and prevention of psychological morbidity in this group. This protocol was submitted for registration with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) (CRD 42021276008).