title: The power of the liver transplant waiting list: a case presentation.
abstract: End-stage liver disease (ESLD), the final stage of chronic liver disease, is treated with liver transplant. Many patients have serious ESLD-related complications and are admitted to the intensive care unit for treatment. Such patients are temporarily unsuitable to undergo transplant surgery and are placed into a temporarily inactive category, "status 7," on the transplant waiting list. Status 7 patients account for about 15% of all patients on the list. To describe the experience of a status 7 patient on the liver transplant waiting list from the perspectives of family members, 38 hours of bedside observation of participants, 9 semistructured interviews with 6 family members, and 9 semistructured interviews with 8 health care professionals from nursing, medicine, and other health care disciplines were done. Data were analyzed via conventional content analysis. Family members' perspectives fit into 3 phases that correspond to the progression of the patient's clinical condition: dealing with crisis, confusion and frustration, and back on the road to transplant. All 3 phases related to 1 goal: getting the patient's status reactivated on the liver transplant waiting list. This case exposes the struggles that patients with ESLD and their families may go through during the status 7 period and could serve as a starting point for further examination of this period.
authors.affiliation: Lissi Hansen is an associate professor, Yi Yan is a graduate student, and Susan J. Rosenkranz is a research associate in the School of Nursing at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. hansenli@ohsu.edu.
authors.forename: Lissi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.affiliation: Lissi Hansen is an associate professor, Yi Yan is a graduate student, and Susan J. Rosenkranz is a research associate in the School of Nursing at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Lissi Hansen is an associate professor, Yi Yan is a graduate student, and Susan J. Rosenkranz is a research associate in the School of Nursing at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
authors.forename: Susan J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Rosenkranz
mesh_terms: D058625:End Stage Liver Disease / Q000523:psychology* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D018579:Patient Selection; D014850:Waiting Lists