Self and Dyadic Management of Patients and Care Partners Living with Durable Ventricular Assist Device: Emerging...

The goal of this paper is to advance precision health among patients with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) and their informal care partners by examining the science of patient, care partner and dyadic management. We (1) describe the current state of self- and dyadic management science in LVAD, and (2) offer frameworks to guide LVAD patient, care partner and dyadic management research.

While frameworks for family and self-management exist for other chronic conditions, dyadic frameworks are rarely used for LVAD patient-care partner dyads, thus limiting research. A handful of primarily qualitative studies describe self-management tasks and skills, but facilitators, barriers, processes, behaviors and outcomes of self- and dyadic LVAD management need more study. In this paper we summarized current progress in self- and dyadic management science in LVAD and offered a preliminary framework to guide research. Future studies should include both care partners and LVAD patients, with thoughtfully selected frameworks to guide more inclusive research in LVAD self- and dyadic management, with the goal of designing the right intervention for the right person at the right time.