Depression in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

Abstract

Depression means feeling low or sad all day without any significant reason. Chronic kidney disease, is a kidney disorder where the kidneys completely fail to excrete the waste products from the body. Due to the chronicity of the kidney disease. in this ailment patients along with their physical illness, face many psychological problems mainly depression. Along with the regular stress of life this diagnosis of CKD puts more pressure psychologically. Psychiatric disorders like depression sometimes diagnosed after the CKD diagnosis. This study focuses on the influence of depression on these patients and influence of demographic variables. The tool used in this study is Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) a scale invented by Beck and accepted universally. A simple random sampling is done for selecting hospital and the responses have been collected from the clients of selected hospital. A stratified random sampling is used to divide the sample in three different age groups. Results of the study revealed strong relationship between depression and CKD. Age or employment does not change the severity of depression. That means the study shows no significant influence of demographic variables on the depression on CKD patients. The BDI scale show majority of CKD patients are suffering from moderate and severe depression. Some patients may require medical management and some may be benefited from counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy.