Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the patients for their participation in the study and acknowledge the support given by the health professionals and the administration personnel of the dialysis participating units.
Introduction: Patients’ beliefs regarding their health are important to understand responses to chronic disease. The present study aimed (i) to determine whether beliefs about health differ between different renal replacement therapies in End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) patients and (ii) to examine whether these beliefs are associated with health related quality of life (HQoL) as well as mental health.
Material and Method: A sample of 89 ESRD patients, 41 in haemodialysis (HD) treatment and 48 in peritoneal dialysis (PD) treatment, completed the World Health Organization Quality of Life instrument, the General Health Questionnaire, the State-Trait Anxiety Inνentory, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control.
Results: Regarding differences in health beliefs between the two groups, HD patients focused more on the dimension of internal health locus of control. This dimension was associated with better QoL (p= <0.01) and general health (p= 0.03) in the total sample. On the contrary, the dimension of important others in health locus of control was associated with higher depression (p=0.02). Limitations of the study Studies on the broader ESRD population and recruiting even larger samples to enable effective multi-group analysis should be pursued in future research.
Conclusions: The beliefs that patients hold about their health can play an important role in their illness and treatment and they could be recognized as a new field for interdisciplinary intervention in individuals with chronic renal failure.
Keywords: Anxiety, depression, health beliefs, mental health, quality of life, renal disease
