Patient with end-stage heart failure — psychosocial aspects of heart transplant qualification

Abstract

In highly developed countries psychological and psychosocial assessments are a standard procedure in the qualification process for glandular organ transplantation. In Poland such evaluation is not common although in some centers it has become a necessary stage in the qualification process for transplantation as is already the case in Cardiology Clinic of University Hospital No. 2 in Bydgoszcz. The article discusses a process that covers sequential events and phases a patient qualified for heart transplant goes through. The process takes into consideration particular burdens that patients undergoing transplantation experience. The article also presents psychological and psychosocial assessment criteria for cardiac transplantation.