The Strategies Used to Balance Health and Work Across the Solid Organ Transplantation Trajectory.
Keira Gaudet, Marc Corbiere, Tianyan Chen and 2 others
PMID 38576412WHAT IT FOUND
Fifteen transplant workers described telling supervisors early, asking for reduced load, flexible hours, remote appointments, and using clinicians’ language to explain limits and infection risks.
These are reported strategies, not tested interventions.
Key findings
01Disclosing end-stage organ disease to their immediate supervisor helped participants determine if work accommodations were possible, and most did so early.
02Participants asked for reduced task load, flexible hours, and remote work.
03After transplantation, participants asked co-workers and clients to take infection precautions, and some said follow-up nurses helped them find language to communicate post-transplant realities.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Most participants had kidney transplants, so some findings are centred on dialysis and end-stage kidney disease. Heart transplant recipients were excluded, and only two liver and two lung recipients were included. Only people who had already returned to the same employer for 3 months to 2 years were included, so it says little about those who lost jobs or had difficult returns. Participants had to report at least moderate challenge to work participation, so those with little challenge were not included. Of 58 contacted, 32 did not meet criteria, 7 refused, and 4 had scheduling conflicts; the analysed sample was 15. The study used self-reported perceptions from French-speaking participants at two Montreal hospitals, so it may not fit other settings. No employer, supervisor, or clinician data were collected. It describes strategies, not whether they improved work retention, fatigue, or health.
Declared interests
Funding came from a University of Montreal research grant and a Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Société et Culture student grant. No commercial sponsor is named.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these strategies as proven to improve return-to-work or job retention. This was a descriptive interview study of 15 transplant recipients, and it did not compare outcomes or test an intervention.