Background: Each year, thousands of patients around the world receive a new heart through heart transplant surgery. This is a lifesaving action and is most common among people with a heart disease that has led to a severe and non-treatable heart failure, for instance cardiomyopathy. But the process of receiving a new heart comes with challenges and the patients can experience emotional and physical difficulties.

Aim: The aim of this study was to illuminate adult patients' experiences after heart transplantation.

Method: A literature-based study was conducted and fourteen scientific qualitative articles were analyzed with a qualitative approach.

Results: After analyzing the results, three main themes emerged; "To receive someone else's heart", "Learning how to live" and "To experience difficult emotions". Each main theme had three significant subthemes. The findings showed that a diversity of experiences arose among the patients after undergoing heart transplant surgery. They experienced gratitude, faith, concern, existential thoughts and sadness. They expressed support and the pursuit of gaining control in daily life as meaningful and essential. But they also had to handle limitations in their lives concerning the medical treatment, the continuous follow-ups and the diet restrictions.

Conclusion: As a nurse it is fundamental to see the heart transplant patient as a unity and a unique person. Thus it is important to notice the patients' psychological difficulties that can arise after heart transplantation and not only observe the physical problems. Communicate with the patients in a motivating and caring way and try to understand their individual experiences of the situation in order to promote their health. In that way we can lay a valuable foundation for nursing.