a survey on quality of life in hemodialysis patient care givers

a survey on quality of life in hemodialysis patient care givers h habibzadeh1, msc h jafarizadeh2, msc y mohammadpoor3, bsc p kiani4, bsc kh lak5, bsc a bahrechi6, bsc received: 22 april, 2009 accepted: 27 july, 2009 abstract background & aims: quality of life is a major concept in family, and changes in health care systems needs families to take care of their chronic patient at home. the present study aims to assess quality of life in hemodialysis patient’s care givers. materials & methods: in this descriptive research forty patient care givers in khoy hemodialsis center were selected randomly. data gathering tools were two questionnaires: one measured demographic characteristic the other measured quality of life in hemodialsis patient’s care givers. content analysis accomplished for validity and half split for reliability. descriptive and hermeneutic statistic was used for data analysis through spss software. results: it was observed that 52.5%of samples had low and middle range of life quality. and 60% was unsatisfied. 85% of the patient’s care givers believed that social supports were inadequate and 67.5% of them felt lack of recreation. the results showed that there wasn’t a significant relationship between quality of life and demographic characteristics (p <0.05). conclusion: hemodialysis leads to decreased quality of life in care givers, so assessing care givers’ health and their quality of life is essential. care givers need as much attention and support as hemodialysis patients. keywords: quality of life, care givers, family address: school of nursing and midwifery, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran tel: 0441-2225522 e-mail email: [email protected]