Life after Heart Transplantation: Risk Perception in Patients and Their Medical Team

Progress in surgical technology and in postoperative therapy has remarkably increased life expectation after heart transplantation. Nevertheless, patients still show a resistance to resume a normal life after transplantation, for example, to return to work. In this study we assume that after surgery...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European psychologist 2002-12, Vol.7 (4), p.285-294
Main Authors: Savadori, Lucia, Lotto, Lorella, Rumiati, Rino
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activities of Daily Living
Biological and medical sciences
Everyday life
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Heart
Heart Surgery
Human
Medical Personnel
Miscellaneous
Organ Transplantation
Patients
Postoperative anxiety
Psychology and medicine
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Quality of Life
Risk Perception
Teams
Transplants
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Summary:Progress in surgical technology and in postoperative therapy has remarkably increased life expectation after heart transplantation. Nevertheless, patients still show a resistance to resume a normal life after transplantation, for example, to return to work. In this study we assume that after surgery patients become risk averse because they achieve a positive frame of reference. Because of this propensity toward risk aversion, they withhold from engaging in behavior that their physical condition would allow them in principle. Coherent with this assumption we found that compared to the medical team patients overestimate the degree of risk for routine activities. The study also showed that the representation of risk by the patients could be captured by a dreadfulness factor and a voluntariness factor . Patients' risk judgments were strongly and specifically predicted by the perceived degree of dreadfulness of the activity and, to a lesser extent, by the perceived knowledge of the consequences. Implications for patient-physician communication were explored.
ISSN:1016-9040
1878-531X
DOI:10.1027//1016-9040.7.4.285