In a new article, published in November of 2012, researchers looked at whether or not people on PD were more or less happy than others on different types of dialysis.  The researchers made an attempt to look at the values and priorities in people’s lives to see how the dialysis was affecting them.  This study looked at other studies to determine a general outcome.

The researchers looked at several things:

We identified 7 themes: resilience and confidence (determination and overcoming vicissitudes), support structures (strong family relationship, peer support, professional dedication, social abandonment, and desire for holistic care), overwhelming responsibility (disruptive intrusion, family burden, and onerous treatment regimen), control (gaining bodily awareness, achieving independence and self-efficacy, and information seeking), freedom (flexibility and autonomy, retaining social functioning, and ability to travel), sick identity (damage to self-esteem and invisible suffering), and disablement (physical incapacitation and social loss and devaluation).

When you think about the way that peritoneal dialysis is viewed by the medical field, it is seen as a great thing for people to be able to accomplish more of their lives – keep on working, not have to travel to the dialysis center, and independence.  But the researchers also found that people were not necessarily happy with the way things were.

If a person did not have a good social structure or family relationships, they might be more depressed and alone feeling.  It seemed more likely with those who did CAPD instead of APD since they have to have the dialysate in the peritoneum and do exchanges throughout the day.

This article changed my perspective some on how I view the different options for prolonging life in ESRD.  You may need to consider many “different” obstacles once you find out you need dialysis instead of choosing blindly.  In my first book about pre-dialysis, I wrote about how much your attitude about how renal disease would affect you impacted your outcome.  That same holds true based on this study.

If you are in need of more information on dialysis meal planning, head on over to our meal planning program and see if we can help!