Dialysis Patients and Patterns of Symptom Report on the Symptom Checklist-90-R

Abstract

This descriptive study of 156 persons undergoing outpatient dialysis shows that two-thirds met the operational definition of caseness for psychiatric disorder (a T score ≥ 63 on the global summary scale or on any two primary dimensions) using the Symptom Checklist 90-R. Over-all, the dialysis patients showed more psychopathology than a normal sample but less than an outpatient psychiatric sample. Length of time as an outpatient on dialysis was not an important predictor of psychopathology.