Messy entanglements: research assemblages in heart transplantation discourses and practices.

The paper engages with a variety of data around a supposedly single biomedical event, that of heart transplantation. In conventional discourse, organ transplantation constitutes an unproblematised form of spare part surgery in which failing biological components are replaced by more efficient and enduring ones, but once that simple picture is complicated by employing a radically interdisciplinary approach, any biomedical certainty is profoundly disrupted. Our aim, as a cross-sectorial partnership, has been to explore the complexities of heart transplantation by explicitly entangling research from the arts, biosciences and humanities without privileging any one discourse.

Grief and loss for patients before and after heart transplant.

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to examine the loss and grief experiences of patients waiting for and living with new hearts.

Background: There is much scholarship on loss and grief. Less attention has been paid to these issues in clinical transplantation, and even less on the patient experience.

Heart transplants: Identity disruption, bodily integrity and interconnectedness.

Of heart transplant recipients, 30 per cent report ongoing or episodic emotional issues post-transplant, which are not attributable to medications or pathophysiological changes. To this end, our team theorized that cardiac transplantation introduces pressing new questions about how patients incorporate a transplanted heart into their sense of self and how this impacts their identity. The work of Merleau-Ponty provided the theoretical underpinning for this project as it rationalizes how corporeal changes affect one's self and offer an innovative framework to access these complex aspects of living with a transplanted heart.

Preparation and Support of Patients through the Transplant Process: Understanding the Recipients' Perspectives.

Preparation for heart transplant commonly includes booklets, instructional videos, personalized teaching sessions, and mentorship. This paper explores heart transplant recipients' thoughts on their preparation and support through the transplant process. Twenty-five interviews were audio-/videotaped capturing voice and body language and transcribed verbatim.

Qualitative interviews vs standardized self-report questionnaires in assessing quality of life in heart transplant recipients.

Quality of life (QoL) studies in heart transplant recipients (HTRs) using validated, quantitative, self-report questionnaires have reported poor QoL in approximately 20% of patients. This consecutive mixed methods study compared self-report questionnaires, the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short Form Health Survey (MOS SF-36) and the Atkinson Life Satisfaction Scale, with phenomenologically informed audiovisual (AV) qualitative interview data in 27 medically stable HTRs (70% male; age 53 ± 13.77 years; time since transplant 4.

What they say versus what we see: "hidden" distress and impaired quality of life in heart transplant recipients.

Background: Quality of life (QoL) studies in heart transplant recipients generally rely on quantifiable self-report questionnaires and have shown that approximately 20% of patients undergo distress and poor QoL not clearly related to medical variables.

Methods: Building on existing qualitative research, we used a phenomenologically informed audiovisual method to explore the nature of "distress" in heart transplant recipients. Focused open-ended interviews were conducted in non-clinical settings with 27 medically stable heart transplant recipients (70% male, mean age 53 ± 13 years, range 18 to 72 years; mean time since transplant 4.

Health status ten years after pediatric liver transplantation--looking beyond the graft.

Background: Little is known about long-term health after pediatric orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). This study aimed to characterize the health status of recipients 10 years after OLT, with an emphasis on transplant-related morbidity and quality of life.

Methods: We performed a retrospective database review of 32 children who underwent OLT before October 1992 at one center and were alive after 10 years.