Preventive Care in Nursing and Midwifery Journal

  Background and Objectives: Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) influence patients’ lifestyles, health statuses, and role functions, and lead to physical and psychosocial problems. Social support is an important copping mechanism by which quality of life and health status of patients improve. The aim of this study was to determine informational and instrumental support in hemodialysis patients in hospitals of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, 2010.

  Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 84 patients with CRF who were referred to the hemodialysis centers of Zanjan were recruited to the study. The participants answered to the two sets of questionnaires: 1) demographic items 2) standard instrument of social support. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics in the SPSS-16 .

  Results: The study showed that 20.3% and 29.7% of participants had optimal informational and instrumental support, respectively .

  Conclusion: More than two third of the patients did not have optimal social support. Regarding positive relationships between social support, quality of life and survival rate in hemodialysis patient, it is suggested that health care policymakers and managers consider the instrumental and informational support in order to improve quality of life in hemodialysis patient.