Meaning and life purpose: the perspectives of post-transplant women

Abstract

PURPOSE:A descriptive, exploratory study was conducted to examine perceptions and meanings assigned to the experience of end-stage heart failure and transplant surgery in female recipients. METHODS:Data was collected from 33 female heart transplant recipients from a heart transplant clinic using quantitative and qualitative methods. Women completed the Life Attitudes Profile and Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist and participated in a semi-structured interview. RESULTS:Women on average had a meaning score of 30.64 Ϯ 8.32 (range, 10-43) and a life purpose score of 40.12 Ϯ 13.78 (range, 17-63). The participants reported high levels of anxiety, depression, and hostility. Women expressed feelings of fear and lack of control related to their heart disease and transplant; however, they also described optimism, faith, acceptance, altruism, self-transcendence, self-fulfillment, and changing life goals as strong motivators for recovery. CONCLUSION:Women experience emotional distress as much as and beyond 5 years after heart transplantation. Their sense of meaning and life purpose is relatively high and is positively informed by several motivating factors that serve as coping resources throughout the recovery process. (Heart Lung® 2003;32:250-7.)

Psychological Predictors (Personal Recourses) of Quality of Life for Heart Transplant Recipients

“…Supporting previous research on the predictive ability of psychosocial factors on patients' QOL post-transplantation, we also found that optimism predicted better QOL [20,21].…”

Physical and psychological attributes of fatigue in female heart transplant recipients

“…6,7 In a previous report, we attributed the increased psychologic distress experienced by women after OHT to ongoing feelings of uncertainty, unpredictability and lack of control. 23 Intuitively, these feelings contribute to emotional distress. Similarly, women with breast cancer reported feelings of fatigue closely linked to depression; in this instance, fatigue was strongly associated with bodily pain and sleep disturbance.…”

Two-year follow-up of quality of life in patients referred for heart transplant

“…In fact, abnormal scores among female transplant recipients were observed in a similar study beyond 5 years posttransplant surgery. 32 Transplant recipients attributed their psychologic distress to knowledge of their continuing vulnerability to major health problems including graft rejection, infection, neoplasm, and death. 33 It follows that, although cardiac transplantation relieves the dysfunction associated with HF, transplant surgery does not free patients from the influence that somatic concern exerts on dysfunction.…”