Psychological Aspects of Lung Transplantation

An organ transplant can be very stressful from a physical and mental point of view, with different manifestations according to the severity of the baseline disease, surgical intervention, experience with the disease, patient’s personality, age, etc. This chapter will be a presentation of the psychological aspects related to lung transplantation, an established option for the surgical treatment of end-stage respiratory failure. A dedicated psychological program follows the patient from the initial approach to the process of transplantation throughout the pre-, peri-, and postoperative course. According to each specific phase of the transplant process of care, the patient’s psychological reaction can be different, and the psychotherapeutic intervention can have specific connotations. This chapter will therefore review the various steps of the transplant process and the main psychological issues involved in each step.