Treatment adherence and coping with stress among black South African haemodialysis patients

Chronic illness is often experienced as stressful both physically and psychologically. The purpose of this study was to investigate how haemodialysis patients cope with treatment-related stress and to establish whether or not coping is related to treatment adherence. Subjects were a convenience sample of 50 black patients undergoing haemodialysis at a South African hospital. Data on coping were collected using the Coping Strategy Indicator (CSI) while treatment adherence was measured by interdialytic weight gain (IWG). The results showed that avoidance and social-support seeking were the most used coping strategies while problem solving was used least. The latter was the only coping strategy significantly associated with treatment adherence. It was concluded that intervention oriented toward problem solving may be helpful in enhancement of adherence behavior.