Improving dyadic quality of life for left ventricular assistive devices patients and caregivers: Rationale & design of the compassion strikes back pilot

When considering implanting a left ventricular assistive device (LVAD), the ability to care for and maintain the device requires significant levels of personal investment, medical care, and emotional resilience. The availability of a caregiver support is also critical to long-term success. Adaptation to life with LVAD includes several challenges from both caregiver and patients' perspectives, creating a bidirectional interaction and creation of dyads. Dyads with protective social support and coping fare better psychologically, which serving as a proxy for improved physical health outcomes. Self-compassion interventions have been shown to be beneficial across various settings for improving psychological outcomes in chronically ill patients and caregivers. Both dyadic coping and self-compassion interventions have limited extant research examining these concepts in the LVAD space. The Compassion Strikes Back Pilot Study explores the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a brief psychosocial intervention within an integrated care setting aimed at improving quality of life for LVAD dyads during early home adaptation. 12 LVAD dyads will be randomized to control or a clinical psychologist led self-compassion intervention. Primary outcomes of interest include the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention, as well as whether the intervention increases quality of life in the immediate post-LVAD home discharge phase. Other outcome measures include perceived stress, cardiac and general self-efficacy, illness denial, and caregiver burden. This pilot study aims to explore the feasibility and acceptability of such an intervention to improve outcomes for LVAD dyads in the early home adaptation phase. Clinical trial registration: NCT06988995 .