Association of stress and anxiety with self-care in hemodialysis patients

Introduction: it is generally accepted that stress and anxiety are of the most common psychiatric complications of hemodialysis. self-care is considered as one of the health promotion behaviors. self-care reduction increases the risk of mortality and morbidity too.objectives: the purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between stress and anxiety with self-care in hemodialysis patients.patients and methods: the present cross-sectional study was conducted on 80 hemodialysis patients, selected by convenience sampling method. the perceived stress was measured by a perceived stress scale (pss) questionnaire, since the anxiety assessed by the spielberger state-trait anxiety inventory (stai), accordingly, self-care assessed by hemodialysis patients’ self-care measurement scale.results: in this study, no patient had poor self-care. the self-care was moderate in 75% of patients and good in 25% of patients. the anxiety was mild in 46.2% of patients, moderate in 50% and severe in 3.8%. the perceived stress was low in 62.5% of patients and high in 37.5% of patients. there was a significant negative correlation between the perceived stress score and the self-care score (p = 0.001, r = -0.376), however, no correlation was observed between anxiety and self-care score (p = 0.089, r = -0.193).conclusion: the results showed that stress of hemodialysis patients had a negative effect on their self-care, while anxiety had no significant effect on self-care. therefore, it is suggested to identify and resolve the factors affecting stress of these patients, and to conduct further research regarding this subject.