Living with life insurance: a qualitative analysis of the experience of male implantable defibrillator recipients in Spain

Abstract

Provide the basis for nursing assessment after discharge, understand the effects of the device in the recipient and track the process of adapting the recipient to daily life.

Perceptions and experiences of patients living with implantable cardioverter defibrillators: a systematic review and meta-synthesis

“…Participants with adequate support, help, and empathy from their family and social networks had better recovery and adjustments [12, 15, 20, 30, 38, 43, 47]. During the period of driving restrictions, they were transported around [30] and prevented from engaging in certain activities that were deemed risky [38].…”

“…Concerns were raised regarding overprotection [15, 23, 26, 38, 43] as it made them feel dependent or being a burden [15, 18]. While some had attempted to stop their family from constantly checking on them [47], others tolerated this positively [43, 47]. By comparison, most participants felt isolated as they had lost the most important person around the time of their diagnosis and were resistant to establish new connections for fear of loss [18].…”

“…Being protective could also strengthen couples’ relationships [47]. Most of them became appreciative of their partners who were their pillars of support [43] and listeners in times of need [30].…”

“…Several coping strategies were implicitly communicated with information belonging to subthemes like psychosocial distress or life adjustments and had to be extracted out. This review identified 12 main coping strategies which include: (1) optimistic interpretation of life situations [20, 26, 44, 47]; (2) talking about it and educating others [20]; (3) developing a strong willpower to live on [26, 44, 47]; (4) understanding own diagnosis to reduce uncertainty [14]; (5) re-evaluating outlook of life and prioritising goals [15, 20, 26, 43, 47]; (6) searching for meanings and rationalising situations [14, 37]; (7) religion and fatalism [15, 38, 43, 47]; (8) acceptance which could refer to either grateful acceptance or resigned acceptance [42]; (9) concealment of fears [42]; (10) distracting oneself with other activities and suppressing thoughts regarding diagnosis [26]; (11) evasiveness and avoidance [42–44, 47]; and lastly, (12) resignation [42, 43]. The first nine coping strategies could be considered as either neutral or adaptive while the remaining three tend to be more maladaptive.…”

“…While older adults were concerned with self-care and functioning independently [47], younger adults were more concerned with developmental transitional tasks like family planning and childbearing [20]. Some were concerned about the heredity of the cardiac conditions and decided against childbearing while those with existing children that might require ICD in future had started preparing them for it [20].…”