Psychologic assessment of candidates for heart transplantation: toward a normative data base.

Psychologic variables appear to play a role in mediating outcome of heart surgery and organ transplantation. Psychologic data, therefore, can be useful in providing optimal care for transplant candidates during hospitalization and recovery. Psychologic assessment of transplantation candidates is difficult because of the lack of normative data specific to this population. This problem is addressed in the present article. A standard protocol for the assessment of heart transplant candidates is described and some preliminary normative data on the tests used in this protocol are presented.