Social Support and Religious Coping Strategies in Health-Related Quality of Life of End-Stage Renal Disease Patients

Chronic disease states are known to cause psychological dysfunctions but are not well studied in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship and influence of social support and religious coping strategies on patient’s health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study was conducted on 274 patients with ESRD who were treated chronic dialysis. The test instruments used were Provision of Social Relation (PSR) which was used to measure social support from family and friends, Short-Form 36 (SF-36) to measure their HRQOL and Religious Coping Strategies (RCS) to determine patients’ positive or negative nature of religious coping. Results showed that social support and religious coping strategies were significantly correlated with HRQoL in both aspects of physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS). In addition, the findings showed that social support and religious coping were predictors of PCS and MCS. Therefore, these factors affected the quality of life in terms of physical and mental health. This study implies that attention should be given to any interventional processes to improve the HRQoL of ESRD patients. Future studies could clarify the issue of causality by employing longitudinal analyses or experimental designs