THE HEALTHCARE TEAM FACING INDIVIDUALS WITH CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE: CONTRIBUTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY TO ADHERENCE TO HEMODIALYSIS TREATMENT
Chronic Kidney Disease, Hemodialysis, Adherence, Psychology, Healthcare Team.
Chronic kidney disease and the demands of its treatment impacts personal identity, as well as lead to psychosocial difficulties in coping with bodily changes and self-image, alongside the numerous necessary adjustments in daily activities and interpersonal relationships of the patient, which may compromise their adherence to therapeutic actions. The present qualitative study aims to construct guidelines to guide the actions of the multidisciplinary healthcare team in understanding and managing psychosocial factors affecting adjustment to illness and adherence to treatment among chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis. To this end, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with users of a hemodialysis clinic at a teaching hospital located in a municipality in the interior of the state of Rio de Janeiro and their family members, as well as with healthcare professionals from various specialties working in the facility. Through interviews scripts developed for the purposes of the research, the meanings, challenges, obstacles, and facilitators of hemodialysis treatment from the participants perspective will be addressed. The data will be analyzed based on Bardin’s Content Analysis and will serve as a basis for the construction of the flowchart, which will be proposed as a strategy to facilitate understanding of the difficulties experienced by individuals with chronic kidney disease and to systematize healthcare team practices in the context at hand. Contrary the biomedical model, the flowchart may constitute a pathway to value patients’ subjectivity and humanize care, while simultaneously enabling greater effectiveness of interventions in hemodialysis clinics.