Denial in heart transplant candidates.

The concept of denial is important for the psychosomatic understanding of cardiovascular disease and treatment. This study evaluated denial using several psychometric assessment scales in patients referred for psychiatric evaluations prior to heart transplantation. Surviving patients who had a mean survival of more than 38 months had less denial than nonsurviving patients who had a mean survival of 4 months. These findings are very preliminary, but interesting, and would encourage further investigation of denial in these patients. Denial is a complex psychological variable, only part of which may be applicable to surgery patients.