The relationship between self-care and depression in patients undergoing hemodialysis

Depression is the most common and important psychological disorder among End-Stage Renal Failure especially those who are undergoing hemodialysis, that can have a negative impact on quality of life and treatment acceptance. Since the patient participation in self-care activities, lead to more independence and patient adjustment with his/her illness, the aim of this research is to determine the relationship between self-care and depression in hemodialysis patients. This is an analytical-descriptive (cross-sectional) study from correlation type that was done on 60 patients under hemodialysis treatment that were selected in randomized cluster sampling in Imam Reza and 17 Shahrivar hospitals of Mashhad in 2006. Data were collected through three questionnaires including demographic information, self-care and depression of CES-D. The data were analyzed by SPSS 11.5 soft ware and with Pearson correlation test, linear regression, Kendal b Tao and kruskal-wallis test. (p<0.05) The mean age of the patients was 42.6±12.3 years and the most frequencies were 63.3% males, 78.3% unemployed, 76.6% married, and 33.9% with elementary education. The findings showed that there is a strong negative relationship between self-care and depression. It means that with self-care increase, depression rate is decreasing in the patients. (p<0.001, r = -0.59). There was a significant relationship between depression and self-care levels. (p= 0.016) There is a negative relationship between depression and self-care in hemodialysis patients. It is better and recommended to improve and prepare any way and methods (teaching and …) for improving self-care in hemodialysis patients behavior to decrease physical and mental complications resulted from hemodialysis treatment.