Counseling Helps Lung Transplant Candidates Cope

Telephone discussions ease the anxious wait for an organ, study finds

MONDAY, June 5, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- Psychological counseling over the telephone can help candidates awaiting lung transplant cope with the long, often agonizing wait for a donor, a new study found.

While counseling didn't improve survival rates or participants' physical health, it did help with quality-of-life issues, "including less emotional distress, lower levels of anxiety and depression, and increased feelings of vitality and perceived social support," lead researcher James Blumenthal, a psychologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C, said in a prepared statement.

A typical lung patient in the United States waits for a donor lung for an average of up to two years, the researchers noted.

"[Transplant candidates] are anxiously awaiting the call than an organ is available and worrying that they may not live long enough," said Blumenthal, whose study colleagues at Duke and at Washington University in St. Louis followed 328 lung patients for several months.

The study compared a group that received 30 minutes of counseling over the telephone once a week for 12 weeks to another group who had no counseling. The therapy included suggestions on managing stress, problem solving, and coping techniques. The telephone was used because lung patients often live far from treatment centers and are unable to make frequent trips from their homes, the researchers said.

The study's results appear in the June issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

More information

To learn more about lung transplant, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Related Stories

No stories found.
logo
www.healthday.com