A Study on Spiritual Well-being of Hemodialysis Patients

Kim, Chung Nam; Hong, Woi Hyun

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the spiritual well-being of hemodialysis patients and the correlation between spiritual well-being and demographic characteristics and disease related characteristics. The subjects for this study were 98 patients who were diagnosed as having chronic renal failure and were being treated at the hemodialysis units of three hospitals located in Seoul, Pusan and Taegu, Korea. Data were collected from October 27, 1997 to November 15, 1997 by an investigator interviewing with a structured questionnaire. Palautizion and Ellison(1982)'s spiritual well-being scale was used after some modification. The results of this study are as follows; To analyze the differences between demographic characteristics, spiritual well-being, and disease characteristics and the spiritual well-being, T-test and ANOVA were used. 1. There were statistically significant differences in spiritual well-being for the demographic characteristics of age(p=0.0145) religious affiliation(p=0.0001) and level of education(p=0.04). 2. There were statistically significant differences in spiritual well-being for the disease characteristics perceived health status(p=0.0014) and vigor(p=0.01). 3. The mean score for spiritual well-being in hemodialysis patients was 57.10of a possible range 22-88. Among the components of spiritual well-being, the mean score for religious well-being was 27.01 of a possible range 11-44, and for existential well-being 30.09 of a possible range of 11-44. 4. Correlation between general characteristics and spiritual well-being showed that there were significantly positive correlations for level f education(p=0.0036), perceived health status(p=0.0001), vigor(p=0.0036), perceived health status(p=0.0001), vigor(p=0.0036) and religion (p=0.0004).