Quality of life, level of physical activity and depression in dialysis patients

Abstract

PURPOSE: The main objectives of our study are to assess the QOL depression and the level of physical activity in hemodialysis patients. METHOD: The self reported measures WHO BREF Questionnaire, Beck depression inventory scale and Global physical activity questionnaire were given to the participants who were receiving hemodialysis and age matched normal individuals at the time of study and consented. And the data was collected with the necessary personal and demographical data. In data Analysis descriptive statistics and non parametric man Whitney and spearman’s correlation were done using SPSS v. 15. RESULT: The non parametric man Whitney u test was done to compare the means of total QOL score, physical health, psychological health, social relationship, environment and depression score. The groups compared show a significant difference and are not equal. The physical activity hypothesis testing showed significance with chisquare value 15.306, p<.05 which indicate there is difference between the patient group and normal in terms of physical activity. The non parametric correlation analysis was done between the QOL and depression scores. There was positive relationship between total raw QOL score and physical health, psychological health. The physical health was positively related to psychological health, environment score and negatively related to depression score. The psychological health was positively related to environment and negatively related to depression score. CONCLUSION: The present study showed compromised health related quality of life, low level physical activity and moderate level of depression among hemodialysis patients. The relationship between physical and psychological dimensions and low level of physical activity pronounces the importance of regular exercises or supervised physiotherapy training to improve the compromised health related quality of life.