Brief clinic-based interventions, such as a screening and referral heuristic and an 'ICD Buddy' system, are suggested to increase effective coping and decrease social isolation for young ICD recipients.
What are the unique psychosocial adjustment issues of young ICD recipients and how can they be managed?
Young ICD recipients experience unique psychosocial challenges that require tailored clinical management strategies to improve coping and reduce social isolation.
This article reviews the data related to psychosocial adjustment of young ICD recipients, postulates theories to explain potential adjustment difficulties to ICD therapy experienced by younger recipients, and suggests clinical management techniques for addressing the unique psychosocial concerns of young ICD recipients. Studies of young ICD recipients suggest that a wide range of psychosocial adjustment issues are prominent in the post-ICD implantation period and that the issues may be different from older ICD recipients. The disability-stress-coping model and the transactional-stress-coping model are postulated as explanations for the unique adjustment concerns of children and adolescents with ICDs. Social comparison theory is also applied to the concerns of young adults with ICDs such that they often lack same age peers to compare experiences with cardiac difficulties. Brief, clinic-based interventions by health care providers, like a screening and referral heuristic and an "ICD Buddy" system, are suggested to increase effective coping and decrease social isolation for young ICD recipients.
Sears et al. (2001) conducted a review in Young implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) recipients. Clinic-based psychosocial interventions was evaluated. Brief clinic-based interventions, such as a screening and referral heuristic and an 'ICD Buddy' system, are suggested to increase effective coping and decrease social isolation for young ICD recipients.