THE EFFECT OF PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT ON HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS’ QUALITY OF LIFE

BACKGROUND: Association between perceived social support and quality of life in hemodialysis patients represents a new area of interest. AIM: The aim of this study was to explore the effect of social support on the quality of life of hemodialysis patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this study 258 hemodialysis patients were enrolled. Data was collected using a questionnaire which consisted of three parts: a) the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) to assess perceived social support, b) the Missoula-VITAS Quality of Life Index (MVQOLI–15) to assess quality of patients’ life and c) the socio-demographic, clinical and other variables of patients. To test the existence of association between quality of life and social support the correlation coefficient of Spearman was used. Multiple linear regression was performed to estimate the effect of social support on quality of life (dependent variable), adjusted for potential confounders. The analysis was performed on SPSS v20. RESULTS: Patients felt high support from significant others and family and less from friends (median 6, 6 and 4.5 respectively). Patients evaluated their quality of life in its entirety as moderate in the total and “overall quality of life” score (median 17.2 and 3 respectively). Regarding the association between social support and quality of life, results showed that the more support patients had from their significant others, family and friends, the better quality of life they had. (rho =0,395, rho =0,399 and rho=0,359, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the relation between social support and quality of life should prompt health professionals to provide beneficial care to hemodialysis patients.