title: Grief and loss for patients before and after heart transplant.
abstract: The purpose of the study was to examine the loss and grief experiences of patients waiting for and living with new hearts.
  
  
  
  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.
  
  
  
  Part of a qualitative inquiry oriented to the work of Merleau-Ponty, a secondary analysis was carried out on audiovisual data from interviews with thirty participants.
  
  
  
  Patients experience loss and three forms of grief. Pre-transplant patients waiting for transplant experience loss and anticipatory grief related to their own death and the future death of their donor. Transplanted patients experience long-lasting complicated grief with respect to the donor and disenfranchised grief which may not be sanctioned.
  
  
  
  Loss as well as anticipatory, complicated and disenfranchised grief may have been inadvertently disregarded or downplayed. More research and attention is needed.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, Faculty of Community Services, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3, Canada. Electronic address: jpoole@ryerson.ca.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Poole
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, Faculty of Community Services, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3, Canada.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology and Transplant, University Health Network, 585 University Avenue, PMB 11-137, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2N2, Canada.
authors.forename: Enza
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: DeLuca
authors.affiliation: Tema Genus, Linkoping University, Linkoping 58183, Sweden.
authors.forename: Margrit
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shildrick
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University Health Network, 585 University Avenue, PMB 11-100D, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2N2, Canada.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abbey
authors.affiliation: Institute of Nursing Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mauthner
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology and Transplant, University Health Network, 585 University Avenue, PMB 11-137, Toronto, Ontario M5G 2N2, Canada.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ross
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001293:Attitude to Death; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D036301:Qualitative Research; D014850:Waiting Lists; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Disenfranchised; Grief; Heart; Merleau-Ponty; Qualitative; Transplantation