Help seeking in a support group for recipients of implantable cardioverter defibrillators and their support persons

PURPOSE: To understand shared meanings of help-seeking experiences in support groups of people with implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) and their support persons. SETTING: ICD support group at an urban medical center. Sample: Fifteen individuals with ICD and 9 support persons. RESULTS: Six related themes and 1 constitutive pattern emerged. Themes included hearing and telling stories, help seeking encouraged by triggers, seeking meaningful information, forming a therapeutic friendship through group camaraderie, gaining assistance from the facilitator, and the sharing of a similar view by support persons. The constitutive pattern is coping with the possibility of death. IMPLICATIONS: Health care providers may recommend storytelling as the central mechanism of interactions in support groups that assist in coping with daily anxieties of living with an ICD. Nurses would be appropriate facilitators to guide discussion, to provide technical information and to promote anticipatory guidance in coping with potential firing events.