The Quality of Life, Depression Levels and Coping Styles of Patients on Kidney Transplant Waiting List

ABSTRACT

This study aims to understand the coping strategies, depression levels, sociodemographic characteristics of Turkish patients with hemodialysis, and the other factors explain quality of life levels. This research is a cross-sectional study. The convenience sampling consisted of 292 patients with hemodialysis. The data were collected using the brief COPE, QOL, Beck Depression Inventory and sociodemographic form. According to the research results, patients show mild (score range 10–16) depression symptoms. One of the most important findings of this study is that the coping strategies and level of depression with chronic kidney patients accounted for a significant amount of variance in their quality of life. The relationship between emotion-focused coping strategy and quality of life was not statistically significant. In addition, high level of depression in chronic renal failure patients significantly reduce the quality of life. As a result of the study, the relationship between the high quality of life of patients who use problem-focused coping strategy more intensively and patients with low depression levels was determined. The findings point to the importance of taking individual coping strategies into account when evaluating the impact of a disease on psychosocial wellbeing. Delineation of coping strategies might be useful for identifying patients in need of particular counseling and support. These patients should have frequent contact with a multidisciplinary team of health care givers, possibly allowing for early diagnosis and prompt treatment. Results suggest targeted interventions to stimulate future research regarding the psychological care of patients with chronic kidney disease.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronic renal failure
• transplant waitlist
• quality of life
• depression
• coping

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.