Publications by authors named "E Blume"
Background And Objectives: Despite advances in treatment and outcomes for paediatric heart failure, both physical and psychosocial comorbidities remain notable among this patient population. We aimed to qualitatively describe the psychosocial experiences of adolescent and young adults with heart failure and their caregivers' perceptions, with specific focus on personal challenges, worries, coping skills, and resilience.
Methods: Structured, in-depth interviews were performed with 16 adolescent and young adults with heart failure and 14 of their caregivers.
Article Synopsis
- Pediatric cardiology fellows often need to communicate serious news to families and effective communication is vital for building relationships and improving health outcomes.
- A 3-hour training session using VitalTalk methodology focused on teaching fellows how to deliver difficult news and handle emotional responses, including role play with actors to practice skills.
- After the training, all 9 participating fellows reported enhanced preparedness and comfort in discussing challenging topics related to pediatric cardiology, such as new congenital heart disease diagnoses and poor prognoses.
Importance: Low socioeconomic status (SES) has been associated with higher risk of rejection and graft loss in pediatric heart transplant (HT) recipients. The association of SES with other posttransplant morbidities is unknown.
Objective: To assess whether low SES is associated with higher risk of a major adverse transplant event (MATE) among pediatric HT recipients.
Background: As more pediatric patients become candidates for heart transplantation (HT), understanding pathological predictors of outcome and the accuracy of the pretransplantation evaluation are important to optimize utilization of scarce donor organs and improve outcomes. The authors aimed to investigate explanted heart specimens to identify pathologic predictors that may affect cardiac allograft survival after HT.
Methods: Explanted pediatric hearts obtained over an 11-year period were analyzed to understand the patient demographics, indications for transplant, and the clinical-pathological factors.