Living with a donor heart: feelings and attitudes of patients toward the donor and the donor organ

For the patient, heart transplantation means more than an operation; adjustment to its rigors requires a high degree of personal strength and adequacy of coping skills. The goal of our study was to gain insight into how heart transplant patients cope with the fact that their own heart has been replaced by a donor organ from an unknown dead donor who was the target of disease, accident, or even suicide. Over a period of 2 years 44 transplant patients were interviewed after rehabilitation in a semi-structured interview regarding their feelings about and reactions to the graft and the donor. Their answers were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed as to content. Three groups of patients were identified: (1) the complete deniers (N = 15), who denied thinking about the donor; (2) the partial deniers (N = 17), who were aware of avoiding thinking about the donor; and those who coped (N = 12), who accepted the death of the donor as reality and also reported having more or less close connections with the donor. Eighty-two percent of the patients interviewed accepted the donor heart immediately as their own, whereas the remaining 18% avoided talking and thinking about the graft and donor. The findings are supported by verbatim statements of patients. The role of defense mechanisms in heart transplant patients is discussed. Language: en