Clinical psychology

Clinical-psychological care for children/adolescents with heart disease and their relatives at the Children's Heart Center Vienna

In order to provide the best possible care for children with heart disease and their families in a center that offers excellent medicine at the highest level, this also requires psychosocial care. In addition to physical well-being, the psychological well-being and psychosocial life issues of patients and their families should not be forgotten.

Most families experience the diagnosis of a heart defect as a shock. Those affected often feel as if they have been blindsided, cannot or do not want to admit it and are desperate. Helplessness, sadness and anger, sometimes also the question of "why", make the time after the diagnosis a problematic phase.

Psychological support for children and adolescents with heart disease and their caregivers is particularly important during this uncertain time of waiting, but also before and after surgery.

The main tasks of clinical psychology are to reduce anxiety, convey confidence and hope and help families to integrate the illness and the associated hospital stays into their lives as well as possible.

The clinical psychologists at the Children's Heart Center work according to the integrated care model and care for children and adolescents with cardiological diseases and their caregivers in outpatient, inpatient and intensive care settings.

The field of activity includes, among other things:

• Individual, couple and family counseling
• Accompanying discussions when a difficult cardiac diagnosis is made and during the disease process
• Support in acute crisis situations
• Psychological preparation for medical interventions and examinations
• Support with issues such as anxiety, grief, pain, physical limitations, etc.
• Assistance with school, professional and social reintegration
• Support with developmental problems, behavioral problems, emotional problems
• Discussions with siblings during the illness
• Transfer discussions in the course of the transition process 

Children's books

Two children's books have also been produced by the department's cardiopsychologists. These are intended to help patients, their siblings, relatives and other people involved and interested in the disease process to better understand the processes in the hospital and thus have a psychoeducational and de-frightening effect.

For 20 years, the psychologists at the Children's Heart Center have been accompanying children to heart operations and various cardiac procedures together with the hand puppet "Dr. Wuschel", thus making a significant contribution to reducing anxiety in young patients and their parents. 

"Dr. Wuschel" has become an important identification figure for children and guides readers through the books as a narrative character.

The first children's book "Merts Herzoperation" explains in a child-friendly way how a child's heart operation is performed at the Children's Heart Center Vienna.

The second book, "Magdalena's Heart Transplant", is intended to answer questions about heart transplants in a child-friendly way for both younger children and their siblings, taking them step by step through the sometimes lengthy process of waiting for a new heart until the heart transplant. 

Patients and their caregivers can obtain both books free of charge at the Pediatric Cardiology Department of the University Clinic for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.