Psychosocial Adjustment and Quality of Life following Heart Transplantation

Abstract

This article describes the pre-operative psychosocial and quality-of-life adjustment of a consecutive series of 27 heart transplant recipients and the adjustment of the 24 survivors at 12 months follow-up. Pre-operatively, 14 had a psychiatric diagnosis and this figure had dropped to five at 12 months follow-up. Those patients without a psychiatric diagnosis pre-operatively had not developed one at follow-up. There was a significant correlation between pre-operative psychiatric diagnosis and a rating of poor medical compliance. Ratings of physical activity, employment and questionnaire ratings of psychological adjustment also showed highly significant improvement at follow-up and the majority of patients were active sexually. It is concluded that heart transplantation in selected subjects with terminal heart disease results in a substantial improvement in psychosocial adjustment and quality-of-life 12 months following surgery.