title: The role of the psychologist in adult congenital heart disease.
abstract: In addition to monitoring and treating the cardiac disease, patients benefit from health professionals recognizing and managing the potential psychosocial consequences of growing up with congenital heart disease. Working groups from Europe and North America have emphasized the benefit of inclusion of specialized mental health care for adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) patients. This article reviews the evidence that ACHD patients have special and unique psychosocial needs and outlines ways in which psychologists can be integrated into multidisciplinary ACHD care teams. There are three professional domains in which clinical health psychologists can contribute to an ACHD team: provision of clinical services, multidisciplinary research, and professional education. Considerations for incorporating psychology into ACHD teams are presented.
authors.affiliation: Cardiac Psychology, Division of Cardiology, University Health Network, 399 Bathurst Street, 1-West-414, Toronto, ON M5T 2N2, Canada. adrienne.kovacs@uhn.on.ca
authors.forename: Adrienne H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Kovacs
authors.forename: Candice
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Silversides
authors.forename: Arwa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saidi
authors.forename: Samuel F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Sears
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010349:Patient Compliance; D011586:Psychology, Clinical / Q000193:education; D011788:Quality of Life; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012917:Social Adjustment