STRESSORS AND COPING STRATEGIES AMONG HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS: A CROSS SECTIONAL SURVEY FROM TERTIARY CARE HOSPITALS, PESHAWAR

Abstract

Background

Kidney diseases are prevailing significantly around the world in terms of its morbidity and mortality rates. End stage renal diseases are considered as one of the most occurring of these kidney diseases which constitute approximately 10 to 15% of all the global burden of diseases. Approximately 88% of all the chronic renal failure or ESRD patients receive hemodialysis management as one of the prime and essential therapy to reinstate their life activities. The statistics report the trend of ESRD and hemodialysis is almost the same in more advanced as well as the developing nations of the world. Certain types of stressors affect the hemodialysis patients during their course of treatment which needs to be addressed with different types of coping strategies among the patients.

Aim

The main purpose of the study was to assess the different types of stressors and to determine the coping strategies among patients undergoing hemodialysis procedure.

Methods

A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out to assess the stressors and coping mechanism among hemodialysis survivors. A sample 383 patients were taken through simple random sampling from the three different types of public sector hospitals, Peshawar. Two types of adopted and validated questionnaire (HSS & JCS) were used to collect the required data. Data was analyzed by SPSS Version-22 for its proper presentations. The analyzed data was portrayed in the form of percentages, frequencies, mean and standard deviation which was further represented in the form of graphs and tables.

Results

The findings of the study showed that majority (69%) of the hemodialysis survivors were male while around (31%) of them were female. Age analysis reported that majority (66%) of all the participants had age more than 50 years of their ages. Physiological stressors was found a big issue among the participants with a mean score 3.16285+0.534 on a scale of 4 category likert scale with an overall percentage of 79.05%.  However Psychological stressors reflected a very big picture in their nature with a mean value of 3.3824+0.6167 with an accumulative percentage of 84.56%. Spirituality and religious coping strategies a mean score of (3.740+0.452) was ranked the highest coping strategies while sleep was found the lowest of coping strategy among patient with a mean score of 1.270+0.0.546.

Conclusion

The findings of the study showed that different types of stressors specifically physical and psychological stressor affect the hemodialysis patients drastically which need to be taken in consideration for their better management. Patients must be treated to develop good coping mechanism skills to overcome their stressors for having betterment in their quality life.