Effects of Psychosocial Education on Adaptation in Elderly Hemodialysis Patients

The purpose of this experimental field pilot study was to determine whether the application of psychosocial education sessions had an effect on the adaptation level of elderly hemodialysis patients. A pretest, posttest control group design with two randomly selected groups was used. Ten patients, 4 males and 6 females, age 65 years and older, were randomly selected and stratified according to gender, with 2 males and 3 females assigned to either an experimental or a control group. The Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale, Self-Report (PAIS-SR) was administered as a pretest 1 week prior to implementation of the intervention with the experimental group. It was again given as a posttest 30 days after completion of the intervention. The intervention, 7 psychosocial educational sessions with 7 audiotapes and a companion text module, provided information. These sessions were conducted with the experimental group, 2 days a week, during the subjects' hemodialysis treatments, taking approximately 20 minutes each, over a period of 4 1/2 weeks. Data were analyzed utilizing t-tests and descriptive statistics. No significant differences were found between the scores of the pretest and posttest when comparing the two groups. However, a significant value of 0.035 (p < 0.05) was evident in one domain of the PAIS-SR, the domestic environment, when comparing the scores of the pretest and posttest of the experimental group. The application of psychosocial education sessions did not have a significant effect on the adaptation level of elderly hemodialysis patients.