Life Satisfaction and Burnout Among Heart, Lung, Liver, and Kidney Transplant Patients and Their Spouses

Abstract

Objective: While a number of studies have dealt with the psychosocial consequences of transplantation for patients, we know comparatively little about the strains faced by their spouses. The present study investigates the psychosocial health of transplant patients and their spouses, as well as the link between these groups’ physical and psychosocial status, on the one hand, and their degree of burnout and level of life satisfaction on the other. Design: In a cross-sectional study, 121 patients and their spouses are surveyed by questionnaire following heart, lung, liver, or kidney transplant. Methods: The psychosocial parameters investigated in both patients and spouses are sense of coherence, quality of life, quality of the relationship, life satisfaction, and burnout. Results: Patients rate the quality of the relationship higher than their partners do, and they are more satisfied with the relationship than their spouses are (p < .001). Regression analyses show that patients’ life satisfaction is associated with quality of the relationship. Evidence of a full burnout syndrome can be found in three of the patients and two of the spouses. Burnout in the case of both patients and their partners is associated with limitations in one’s own sense of coherence and in one’s mental and physical health (multiple R2 = 0.79 for patients and 0.76 for spouses). Conclusion: Because of the importance of the couple’s relationship, psychosocial counseling should pay more attention to relationship satisfaction. Psychotherapeutic techniques should be used to improve the sense of coherence in both patient and spouse.