Effects of Meditation on Depression among Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis

Abstract

Background: Considering the increasing prevalence of psychological problems, complications, and consequences of depression in patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD), the application of complementary therapies such as meditation counseling is highly important. Objectives: Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of meditation on depression in patients undergoing HD. Methods: This clinical trial was conducted on 57 patients who met the inclusion criteria by the convenience sampling method. The participants were randomly allocated to intervention and control groups. Those in the intervention group attended three 15-20 minute educational practice sessions weekly offered over an eight weeks while the control group received no intervention. A validated questionnaire assessed depressive symptoms at baseline and after 4 and 8 weeks. In addition, the CONSORT statement was adhered to where possible. Finally, t-test, repeated-measures ANOVA, Fisher's exact test, and Chi-square tests were used to analyze data using SPSS 16. Results: The mean depression score among the patients of the intervention group decreased from 85±1.56 at baseline to 70±1.27 at 8-week follow-up (P=0.003). Further, the mean score of depressive symptoms significantly decreased during eight weeks after the intervention (P<0.001). Conclusion: Simple and non-expensive meditation exercises could fruitfully decrease depression symptoms in patients undergoing HD. The prevalence of depressive symptoms is high among the patients, therefore, the implementation of meditation exercises should help minimize a major problem in these groups of patients.

The effect of hemodialysis with cool dialysate on nausea in hemodialysis patients: A randomized clinical trial

“…VAS includes a horizontal line ranging from 0 to 10, with the scores 0 indicating no nausea, 1–3 mild nausea, 4–6 moderate nausea, 7–9 severe nausea, and 10 extremely severe nausea. The validity and reliability of this tool have been investigated in various studies 5,7,24,25 . The rate of patients' nausea was measured in three stages (beginning of hemodialysis, 2 h later, and at the end of hemodialysis).…”

“…The validity and reliability of this tool have been investigated in various studies. 5,7,24,25 The rate of patients' nausea was measured in three stages (beginning of hemodialysis, 2 h later, and at the end of hemodialysis). The rate of patients' shivering was also evaluated at the beginning of hemodialysis, 2 h later, and at the end of hemodialysis using the shivering grade (Wrench et al's shivering grade).…”