Factors Affecting Fatigue in Chronic Renal Failure Patients under Hemodialysis Treatment at Qena University Hospital in Upper Egypt

Abstract

Fatigue is one of the most frequent complaints of haemodialysis patients and is associated with impaired health related quality of life. Fatigue is documented as a negative symptom experienced by a large number of patients with end stage renal disease undergoing hemodialysis. Fatigue is a distressing symptom, and the consequences of fatigue can be over whelming .The person with fatigue need more efforts to perform activities, physical and cognitive, compared with the effort required before the onset of fatigue. The purpose of this study was to investigating the factors affecting fatigue in patients under hemodialysis treatment. In this descriptive study, 59 patients with chronic renal failure treated with hemodialysis at Qena University Hospitals in Upper Egypt .Data collection tool was a personal information questionnaire based on demographic characteristics (age, sex, marital status, education, number of children, occupation, income and income sufficiency, type of therapeutic support and duration of reaching the hospital) and also information regarding the duration of illness, history of hemodialysis psychedelic drugs, levels of hemoglobin, urea, creatinine, systolic blood pressure and dry weight. The second data collecting tool was the fatigue severity scale. Inclusion criteria were the medical diagnosis of chronic renal failure according to patients’ medical records, continuous and regular visit for treatment, having some degree of fatigue based on the fatigue severity index questionnaire, willingness to participate in the study, age of 19years and older, auditory and speech ability and an having enough consciousness for answering the questions. In this study there was no significant difference in terms of fatigue, between different age groups and the most fatigue was observed in the age group of 19-28 and above 69years. In this study fatigue showed an increase with the increase of dialysis history but this was significant only in terms of disease history. The frequency of fatigue is high in hemodialysis patients. Overall, men have more fatigue than women when treated with hemodialysis designing and developed illustrated booklet about interventions that can be tailored to meet individual needs should be available and distributed for each patient admitted to hemodialysis unit. Further research is needed to study associated factors with fatigue in the hemodialysis population.

Keywords: Fatigue, Chronic Renal Failure, Hemodialysis