Quality of life, self-care ability, and sense of coherence in hemodialysis patients: a comparative study

The number of patients treated for end-stage renal disease has increased in Sweden as in the rest of the world. During the last 6 years, more than 1000 people per year started renal replacement therapy in Sweden. Today hemodialysis (HD) patients have the opportunity to choose from different treatment modalities, home HD, self-care dialysis or conventional dialysis. The aim of the study was to investigate whether there are differences in the way HD patients view their quality of life, self-care ability and sense of coherence if they dialyze themselves at home, dialyze themselves in center (self-care), or if they are dialyzed by nurses in an outpatient dialysis unit. The instruments consisted of the Short Form 36 (SF-36) health survey, the Appraisal of Self-Care Agency questionnaire and the Sense of Coherence questionnaire. Nineteen patients participated in the study (5 patients on home HD, 6 self-care patients and 8 patients on conventional in center dialysis). There was a tendency for those who dialyzed at home to score higher on quality of life, self-care ability and sense of coherence than those who dialyzed themselves in center. Since the number of participants in this study was low, it is necessary for future studies to include more patients to verify the results.