Self-Care Self-Efficacy and Quality of Life among Patients Receiving Hemodialysis in South-East of Iran

Objective: Hemodialysis, encounter end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients with many physical and psychosocial stresses that negatively affect their quality of life. There is growing recognition that self-care self-efficacy in chronically ill patient is associated with improvement of quality of life (QoL). This study thus was conducted to examine self-care self-efficacy and its relationship to quality of life in hemodialysis patients in South-East of Iran.

Method: Using translated FS36 and SUPPH, QoL and self-care self-efficacy of 60 hemodialysis patients in Pastor Hospital supervised by Bam university of Medical Science assessed. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16.

Results: In SF36, participants' general quality of life (mean=45.82, SD=19.06) as well as overall physical health (mean= 45.52, SD=19.26) and overall mental health (mean= 46.27, SD=19.72) were low. Descriptive analysis indicated that participants were moderately unconfident of being able to perform self-care behaviors related to the illness (mean=2.94, SD=0.69). The results indicated that there was a positive correlation between participants' quality of life and their self-care self-efficacy.

Significance of results: Findings from this study suggest that with the purpose of improving hemodialysis patients' QoL, heath care professionals need to first identify patients who lack the self-care efficacy required to self-care, and then focus on specific educational interventions to build confidence in self-care during hemodialysis sessions.