OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the perceived state of health (PSH)of renal transplant N=359). METHODS: The differences in PSH according to sex are presented here for patients included to date at all centres in the study. The analysis corresponds to the base moment, when they are on the transplant waiting list.A generic PSH profile, the SF-36 Health Questionnaire and an index, EQ-5D are applied to each patient. To evaluate the differences with respect to sex in both measurements, the Student-t test was used for independent samples and the chi-squared test for contingency tables. RESULTS: For the whole sample, the PCS score was 42.09 8.6, MCS 46.6 11.5 and VAS 60.1 17.4. Females had worse PSH than males on 7 of 8 dimensions of SF-36 (the exception being Social Functioning ) and in the two summary scores: PCS (40.2 9.1 in females, 43.3 8 in males) and MCS (44.9 11.7 vs. 47.7 11.2) (p<0.05). With regard to EQ-5D, females showed a similar score to males in VAS (58.2 18.1 vs. 61.4 16.9), but poorer scores in 4 of the 5 dimensions (except in personal care ): mobility (p=0.047), everyday tasks (p=0.0001) and anxiety-depression (p=0.006).The PSH of patients of both sexes on renal transplant waiting lists at the centres studied is worse than that to be expected in the general population as regards physical health (score under 45 points), but similar as regards mental health (score over 45 points). VAS does not appear to be a good measurement of PSH as it oversimplifies, including as it does physical and mental aspects in a single index. CONCLUSIONS: Among these patients, the PSH of females is clearly worse than that of males, as is also the case in the general population, demonstrating the need for standardisation with respect to sex of scores on PSH questionnaires.