Issues in Pulmonary CareUse of complementary therapies, adherence, and quality of life in lung transplant recipients*
Section snippets
Patients and procedures
All surviving patients who received a lung or heart/lung transplant at our institution from November 1986 to January 1999 were identified as potential subjects for this study.
A self-report survey, a cover letter, and a self-addressed, stamped, return envelope were mailed to 145 adult heart/lung or lung transplant recipients who had their transplant at least 6 months earlier. Approximately 4 weeks after the survey was mailed, a reminder postcard was sent to all recipients who had not returned
Respondent demographics
Ninety-nine participants completed the survey for a response rate of 68%. As displayed in Table II, the median age of 52.1 years (range, 16-68) is slightly higher than the mean age of 50.7 years because of some fairly young respondents lowering the mean age.Patient characteristics Frequency Current age (median, range) 52.1 y, 16-68 y Sex (male, female) 42%, 58% Marital status (married, single) 62%, 38% Education (n = 97) High school or less 36.0% Some college 32.0%
Discussion
The primary purpose of this study is to describe the use of complementary and alternative therapies among lung and heart/lung transplant recipients. This was done through a self-report cross-sectional survey mailed to lung and heart/lung recipients from our center. Our response rate of 68% is comparable with that of other mailed surveys of transplant recipients.5
Lung and heart/lung transplant recipients use complementary therapies. Almost 90% of our respondents use at least 1 modality and most
Conclusion
Most lung and heart/lung transplant recipients are using at least 1 complementary or alternative therapy, usually more than 1. We found no differences between CAM users and nonusers in perceived health status, functional status, or adherence to their medical regimen. The last would tend to indicate that persons using CAM were doing so in a complementary nature and the CAM is used as an adjunct and not as a replacement or alternative for the medical regimen.
Future work needs to be done to better
Acknowledgements
We thank the transplant recipients who participated in this study and acknowledge Julie Mielke for her excellent assistance in manuscript preparation.
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Cited by (46)
Nonadherence to the medical regimen after lung transplantation: A systematic review
2017, Heart and Lung: Journal of Acute and Critical CareCitation Excerpt :Notably, among the articles using self-report measures, a variety of scales were used with most scales having been validated in other chronic diseases or other solid transplant recipients, and their reliability and validity among LTRs was generally unreported.6,22,23,25,26,29,31 Among the 13 articles identified on medication nonadherence, 6 reported associated risk factors for nonadherence.14,21,24,26–28 None of the factors were examined in a sufficient number of articles (i.e., >5) to allow for a meta-analysis.
Medication Nonadherence After Lung Transplantation in Adult Recipients
2017, Annals of Thoracic SurgeryCitation Excerpt :Similarly, nonadherent patients without any adverse consequences are less likely to be detected. Still, the prevalence of more than 10% in the UNOS patient cohort is in line with other reports that range from 4.5% to 26% [9, 12, 15–17]. As a further limitation, information about nonadherence may be poorly reported, was only recorded until December 2006 (not allowing for a more recent analysis) and was not assessed based on severity of nonadherence.
A thematic analysis of quality of life in lung transplant: The existing evidence and implications for future directions
2013, American Journal of TransplantationAdherence to immunosuppression in adult lung transplant recipients: Prevalence and risk factors
2011, Journal of Heart and Lung TransplantationCitation Excerpt :Our initial finding is that we found adherence to immunosuppressive therapy to be high in our study population. The NA rate of 7.7% was lower compared with the NA rates reported by Teichman et al13 and Matthees et al,20 but in those studies adherence was defined as the intake of all medications, not only the primary immunosuppressant, which may have caused higher NA rates. Dew et al15 measured adherence of the primary immunosuppressant.
Survival and Quality of Life of Patients Undergoing Lung Transplant
2011, Clinics in Chest MedicineCitation Excerpt :The retrospective design, the small cohort size, and other methodological issues limit the interpretation of the results. Multiple studies have provided a strong body of evidence that patients with lung disease severe enough to undergo listing for lung transplant have profoundly reduced quality of life and health-related quality of life (HRQOL).25–60 Although a reasonable amount of published data exist, serious methodological limitations affect the ability to draw well-supported conclusions regarding the effects of lung transplant on quality of life.
Creation of a Healing Enhancement Program at an academic medical center
2007, Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice
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Reprint requests: Barbara J. Matthees, MPH, RN, Assistant Professor of Nursing, Minnesota State University Moorhead, 216 Murray Commons, 1104 7th Ave South, Moorhead, MN 56563.