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Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives
BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic transformed healthcare services in ways that have impacted individual physical and psychological health. The substantial health challenges routinely faced by dialysis-dependent patients with advanced kidney disease have increased considerably during the ongoi...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10686285/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38034282 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1185411 |
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author | Oviedo Flores, Krystell Stamm, Tanja Alper, Seth L. Ritschl, Valentin Vychytil, Andreas |
author_facet | Oviedo Flores, Krystell Stamm, Tanja Alper, Seth L. Ritschl, Valentin Vychytil, Andreas |
author_sort | Oviedo Flores, Krystell |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic transformed healthcare services in ways that have impacted individual physical and psychological health. The substantial health challenges routinely faced by dialysis-dependent patients with advanced kidney disease have increased considerably during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but remain inadequately investigated. We therefore decided to analyze and compare the perspectives of dialysis patients on their own needs and challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic with those of their professional healthcare providers through interviews with both groups. METHODS: Qualitative study of seven in-center hemodialysis patients, seven peritoneal dialysis patients, seven dialysis nurses, and seven physicians at the Medical University of Vienna between March 2020 and February 2021, involving content analysis of semi-structured interviews supported by a natural language processing technique. RESULTS: Among the main themes emerging from interviews with patients were: (1) concerns about being a ‘high-risk patient’; (2) little fear of COVID-19 as a patient on hemodialysis; (3) questions about home dialysis as a better choice than in-center dialysis. Among the main themes brought up by physicians and nurses were: (1) anxiety, sadness, and loneliness of peritoneal dialysis patients; (2) negative impact of changes in clinical routine on patients’ well-being; (3) telehealth as a new modality of care. CONCLUSION: Preventive measures against COVID-19 (e.g., use of facemasks, distancing, isolation), the introduction of telemedicine, and an increase in home dialysis have led to communication barriers and reduced face-to-face and direct physical contact between healthcare providers and patients. Physicians did not perceive the full extent of patients’ psychological burdens. Selection/modification of dialysis modality should include analysis of the patient’s support network and proactive discussion between dialysis patients and their healthcare providers about implications of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic. Modification of clinical routine care to increase frequency of psychological evaluation should be considered in anticipation of future surges of COVID-19 or currently unforeseen pandemics. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10686285 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106862852023-11-30 Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives Oviedo Flores, Krystell Stamm, Tanja Alper, Seth L. Ritschl, Valentin Vychytil, Andreas Front Psychol Psychology BACKGROUND: The global COVID-19 pandemic transformed healthcare services in ways that have impacted individual physical and psychological health. The substantial health challenges routinely faced by dialysis-dependent patients with advanced kidney disease have increased considerably during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but remain inadequately investigated. We therefore decided to analyze and compare the perspectives of dialysis patients on their own needs and challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic with those of their professional healthcare providers through interviews with both groups. METHODS: Qualitative study of seven in-center hemodialysis patients, seven peritoneal dialysis patients, seven dialysis nurses, and seven physicians at the Medical University of Vienna between March 2020 and February 2021, involving content analysis of semi-structured interviews supported by a natural language processing technique. RESULTS: Among the main themes emerging from interviews with patients were: (1) concerns about being a ‘high-risk patient’; (2) little fear of COVID-19 as a patient on hemodialysis; (3) questions about home dialysis as a better choice than in-center dialysis. Among the main themes brought up by physicians and nurses were: (1) anxiety, sadness, and loneliness of peritoneal dialysis patients; (2) negative impact of changes in clinical routine on patients’ well-being; (3) telehealth as a new modality of care. CONCLUSION: Preventive measures against COVID-19 (e.g., use of facemasks, distancing, isolation), the introduction of telemedicine, and an increase in home dialysis have led to communication barriers and reduced face-to-face and direct physical contact between healthcare providers and patients. Physicians did not perceive the full extent of patients’ psychological burdens. Selection/modification of dialysis modality should include analysis of the patient’s support network and proactive discussion between dialysis patients and their healthcare providers about implications of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic. Modification of clinical routine care to increase frequency of psychological evaluation should be considered in anticipation of future surges of COVID-19 or currently unforeseen pandemics. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10686285/ /pubmed/38034282 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1185411 Text en Copyright © 2023 Oviedo Flores, Stamm, Alper, Ritschl and Vychytil. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Oviedo Flores, Krystell Stamm, Tanja Alper, Seth L. Ritschl, Valentin Vychytil, Andreas Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives |
title | Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives |
title_full | Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives |
title_fullStr | Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives |
title_full_unstemmed | Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives |
title_short | Challenges to dialysis treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives |
title_sort | challenges to dialysis treatment during the covid-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of patients’ and experts’ perspectives |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10686285/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38034282 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1185411 |
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