Quality of life of patients undergoing hemodialysis

Georgia Garofyllou,Areti Stavropoulou,Georgia Gerogianni,Konstantinos Tsaras,Evridiki Kaba,Martha Kelesi,Georgia Fasoi

doi:10.12681/healthresj.20434

Abstract

Introduction: Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) is a chronic disease, which has a negative impact on the quality of patients’ life. The study of factors affecting the quality of life of these patients is necessary to investigate the impact of the disease in a biological, psychological and social level.Aim: The purpose of this research study was to investigate the satisfaction of patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis and their perceptions of their quality of life.Material and Method: The study sample consisted of patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis at a Dialysis Unit in Athens. The study lasted from January 2016 to March 2016. To measure the health related quality of patients’ life, the Greek version of the questionnaire WHOQOL-BREF of the World Health Organization was used. The completion of the questionnaires was made by the method of the structured interview. A total of 70 questionnaires were completed.Results: According to the study results, most of the patients considered the quality of their life as good (48.6%), while the 8.5% described it as bad or very bad. The lowest satisfaction rates associated with issues of physical health and independence with mean (12.89 ± 2.23) and the highest with social relations (14.68 ± 1.50).Conclusion: The effect of Chronic Renal Failure on the physical, psychological and social background of patients on dialysis is an essential factor in creating a tailor-made holistic treatment program, adjusted to the specific needs of each patient.

Highlights

Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) is a chronic disease, which has a negative impact on the quality of patients’ life
Sample Characteristics Descriptive statistics of seventy patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis are presenting in Table 1. 67.1% of them were male and 32.9% female
A divorced status was found to be associated with a lower quality of life on the environmental domain.[18]. This finding may be related to the lack of social support in the face of a life threatening illness. These results are similar to other studies on the relationship between perceived social support and quality of life on hemodialysis patients where the researchers found a statistically significant relationship between perceived social support and health-functioning, socioeconomic, http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 08/11/2021 18:10:45 |

Summary

Introduction

Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) is a chronic disease, which has a negative impact on the quality of patients’ life. It depends on age, gender, social and economic status of each patient and the level of academic education, while it is influenced by factors related to this disease, such as early referral to a nephrologist, regular monitoring and biological disorders related to the primary disease or other diseases.[1,5] The latest developments in the field of nephrology and dialysis treatment aim at the survival of patients and the improvement of the quality of their life For this purpose, scientifically acceptable tools have been created in order to study the quality of life in the context of personal experiences and assessment of the external factors affecting the quality of life, such as the standards of patients living, the accessibility to health services and social support services.[6,7]

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