A Study on the Relationship between Hope and Self-Care Agency in Hemodialysis Patients

혈액투석환자의 희망과 자가간호역량과의 관계

This study examined and identified the relationship between the level of hope and self-care agency in hemodialysis patients. The purpose of the study was to reveal that hope is an essential factor to enhance self-care agency and to prepare the basic materials to help nurse the patients. The subjects for this study consisted of 108 persons who undergoing hemodialysis from 2 hospital, 2 hemodialysis center in Pusan, Korea. The degree of hope was measured by the questionnaire that has been developed by Miller. The self-care agency was measured by the questionnaire that has been developed by Kearney B.Y & Fleisher B.J. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and t-test. one-way ANOVA and Pearson's Correlation Coefficient with SPSS WIN program. Results were obtained as follows: 1) The mean scores of hope were $131.77{\pm}25.77$(range 67-195). The rate of hope classified said that the lowest hope was 2.8% and low hope was 27.8%. 2) The mean scores of self-care agency were $143.78{\pm}23.63$(range 74-187). The degree of self-care agency classified said that the rate of self-care agency deficiency was 0.9% and low self-care agency was 12.0%. 3) The hope was significantly related to self-care agency. That is, the higher the hope score was， the higher the level of self-care agency score(r=0.668，p=0.001) was. In this result, there were hemodialysis patients who have very low hope score and self-care agency score. In this cases self-care agency can be increased by encouraging the patients to be more hopeful. Conclusively nurses should access the degree of hope and self-care agency of hemodialysis patients individually and apply the hope therapy in order that the patient have higher hope than before.