Dyadic social-support for cardiac surgery patients--a Canadian approach

Over the past 15 years there has been a substantial increase in the number of cardiac operations being performed. The role of the lay helper volunteer who has successfully recovered from cardiac surgery, offering support to individuals about to undergo similar surgery, is earning a legitimate place in cardiac rehabilitation. This 'living proof' model of support appears to have a significant buffering effect through increasing the cardiac patients' readiness for cardiac surgery and motivation for cardiac rehabilitation. Most literature focuses on individuals who have suffered a myocardial infarction rather than those who must undergo cardiac surgery. The focus of this article is lay volunteer dyadic social-support for open-heart surgery patients. The authors describe such a program operating in Halifax, Nova Scotia, designed to link volunteers who have successfully recovered from open-heart surgery with those individuals about to undergo similar surgery. Comparisons are also made with parallel support programs in Canada and the United States. Thus far, only crude measurements of the effectiveness of this particular social-support intervention are available. The dyadic social-support that volunteers offer cardiac surgery patients seems to be effective as evidenced by the information discussed in this paper.