Psychosocial challenges faced by children who had a solid organ transplant: adherence, transition, and posttraumatic...

Behavioral and mental health challenges are important to understand in order to ensure that patients receive the anticipated benefits from organ transplantation. The present review centers on what we believe are the most important (and best researched) actionable challenges that may inform the care of transplant recipients - adherence to medical recommendations, transitions of care, and posttraumatic stress following transplantation.

Recent research has moved from identifying (and quantifying) the problem and is now trying to investigate how to best recognize - and address - behavioral and mental health challenges in this population.

While much remains unknown, it is increasingly becoming clear that early recognition is best done by increasing awareness amongst transplant team members, and objective surveillance methods. Subjective patient and parent reports should be considered if other methods are not available. It is becoming increasingly clear that psychosocial interventions are feasible and potentially effective. Transplant programs should try to be aware of such interventions, implement them when feasible, and create referral pathways that can be used when needed.