Supporting the patient in coping with problems: Evaluating an activity intervention with hemodialysis patients in Israel

As a life-threatening and potentially disabling disease, End Stage Renal Disease and its treatment cause stress as well as other psychosocial problems for patients and their families. This paper examines the results of an innovative activity-based intervention aimed at reducing some of the psychosocial repercussions of hemodialysis. A modified withdrawallreversal design was employed to compare patients participating in the intervention and those who did not, at two points in time. The findings confirmed that dialysis patients in general have relatively high levels of psychological distress, difficulty adhering to the treatment regimen and poor self-rated health. Patients participating in the group activity were more anxious and had lower levels of interdialytic weight gain than the non-participants. After the intervention was terminated, levels of psychological distress, hostility and phobie anxiety among patients in the treatment group dropped, while their weight gain continued to be less than that of non-participating patients. The implications ofthese findings as weil as the methodological difficulties entailed in this type of study are examined. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:<[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>