International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences | August 2021 | Vol 9 | Issue 8 Page 2225 International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences Oztop KE et al. Int J Res Med Sci. 2021 Aug;9(8):2225-2230 www.msjonline.org pISSN 2320-6071 | eISSN 2320-6012 Original Research Article Quality of life, depression and self-perceived burden among geriatric and non-geriatric hemodialysis patients Kenan Evren Oztop 1 , Ferhat Cetin 2 , Ahmet Bilal Genc 3 , Ceyhun Varim 3 *, Savas Sipahi 4 INTRODUCTION Patients on maintenance dialysis must deal with a multitude of physical and emotional symptoms. Due to the difficulties caused by the disease and the treatment, hemodialysis patients often required to take support from other people, especially family members. 1 Family members, who assist in patient care, may experience many negative objective and subjective results of caregiving including psychological problems, health problems, socioeconomic problems, deterioration in family relationships and a sense of burnout. 2 All these negative situations faced by family members (unpaid caregivers) are defined as ‘caregiver burden’ and the effects of this burden to their caregiver’s life have been extensively examined in the literature. The number of studies on the caregiver burden has been reported that the quality of life (QOL) in caregivers of hemodialysis patients related to burden of caregiving. 3,4 Being a burden to a family member can be interpreted as meaning that feeling guilty because of caring needs, so it can link to depression and reduction in QOL. Cousineau and colleagues developed a scale for measuring chronic patient’s feelings of being a burden to their caregivers and confirmed that the scores of this Self-perceived burden scale (SPBS) were negatively correlated with functional status index and QOL of patients. 5 Although the burden in 1 Department of Internal Medicine, Sakarya Nefromed Dialysis Center, Sakarya, Turkey 2 Department of Internal Medicine, Kadıkoy NB Private Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey 3 Department of Internal Medicine, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Turkey 4 Department of Nephrology, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Turkey Received: 29 May 2021 Accepted: 30 June 2021 *Correspondence: Dr. Ceyhun Varim, E-mail: ceyhunvarim@sakarya.edu.tr Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Background: Many hemodialysis patients need support at various levels from their relatives while performing their daily activities. The ‘burden’ of these needs of patients on their relatives and their negative effects on their lives have been shown in the literature. The aim of the study was to evaluate the ‘care burden’ in terms of the patient. Methods: The patient who had received hemodialysis for at least 3 months was included in the study. A patient identification form including demographic data and medical history data was prepared. The Perceived care burden scale, Beck depression scale and WHO Quality of life questionnaire were applied to the patients. Results: A statistically significant positive correlation was found between SPBS and BDI (p<0.001, r=0.820). A statistically significant negative correlation was observed between the perceived care burden and all sub-dimensions of the quality of life scale (p<0.001). The frequency of comorbidity in the geriatric group was higher than non-geriatric group. A statistically significant positive correlation was found between comorbidity and QOL (p<0.001). The median scores of all sub-dimensions of the QOL scale were lower in geriatric group and there were significance differences except environment dimension. Conclusions: The self-perceived burden on caregivers of hemodialysis patients was positively associated with depression and negatively associated with QOL. Decrease in QOL was more pronounced in geriatric patients. Keywords: Perceived care burden, Quality of life, Depression DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20213064