Assessment of Stress and Coping Ability among Patients Subjected to Hemodialysis in a Tertiary Care Center

Tuesday, 8 July 2008: 11:10 AM
Thumbala Rajamanickam Udaya Kumar, RN, RPN, PhD , Medical - Surgical Department, SRMM College of Nursing, Wardha, India

Learning Objective 1: Enhance knowledge on importance of Nurses role and their competence in caring chronic hemodialysis patients

Learning Objective 2: Acquire the knowledge on the stress and coping ability of patients undergoing hemodialysis in indian scenario

“Assessment of level of stress and coping ability among patients subjected to hemodialysis in a tertiary care center”.

Stress in human life is often equated with tension, anxiety, worry and pressure. Chronic renal failure is threatened with many potential losses and changes in lifestyle. In the initial stages a patient may need only rest and dietary restrictions but as the disease progresses, the patient physically may not be able to cope up with his work and hence take medical leave for hospitalization to reduce his working hours or even may refrain from going to work that may affect the whole family, especially if the patient is the breadwinner. A descriptive longitudinal study was conducted with 150 patients using modified stress scale developed by Kathleen Smith Baldree et.al, and coping scale developed by Jalowiec and Powers to; To identify the stress, stressors and coping abilities experienced by hemodialysis patients, To correlate stress and coping abilities, To associate level of stress and coping abilities with demographic variables, To compare stress and coping abilities among hemodialysis patients at different intervals, To rank the stressors and coping abilities by patients subjected to hemodialysis. Pearson correlation co-efficient value was having “High Negative correlation” which indicates statistically significant relationship at P<0.001 level. Significant association was identified between stress and frequency of dialysis, diabetes mellitus and duration of hypertension at P<0.01 and P<0.05 level respectively. The significant relationship was obtained between overall coping and presence of diabetes mellitus at P<0.05 level. Multiple statistical comparison between different times of hemodialysis for physical stressors evoked the significant relationship between 1st and 2nd; 1st and 3rd; 2nd and 3rd; 2nd and 4th at P<0.001 level. Patients Undergoing chronic hemodialysis experience Severe stress, Nurse should focus on the patient care to attain the optimal quality of life.