[The correlation between psychic disorders and demographic features in hemodialysis patients].

INTRODUCTION Recent studies show that psychological status of HD patients has been changed in terms of an increased score of the called neurotic triad: hypochondria, depression and hysteria. The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between the development of psychopathological tendencies in HD patients and the demographic features such as: gender, age, marital status, education level, employment status and HD duration. MATERIAL AND METHODS There were 56 patients on HD. Depending on registered psychopathological tendencies, we compared patients according to the mentioned demographical characteristics. We applied MMPI 201. Previously, all patients were psychologically examined by explorative interview regarding demographical data and the pre-dialysis psychological status. To compare categorical variations, we use 6 multivariant analysis of variance. A p value of <0.5 was considered to be statistically significant. RESULTS The overall profile of psychopathological tendencies of HD patients indicates increase of scores on neurotic triad. Female patients showed significantly higher level of psychosteny than male patients (FPt=4.86, p<0.05): singles showed significantly higher scores on some psychotic subscales--paranoia, schizophrenia, mania--in relation to the group of married patients (FPa=7.21, FSc=6.84, FMa=5.35, p<0.05): patients with only primary school have significantly more expressive paranoia in relation to patients with university education (FPa=3.80, p<0.05); unemployed patients have significantly more expressed paranoia and tendencies to emphasize pathology in relation to employed patients (FF=5.13, FPa=5.94, p<0.05). CONCLUSION Depression could be taken as a a primary psychiatric complication associated with life on haemodialysis. Gender, marital status, education level and employment status significantly influence the differences in occurrences of psychopathological tendencies in HD patients.