Effects of WeChat-based medical popular science on anxiety and depression of hemodialysis patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Abstract: Objective To evaluate the impact of WeChat-based medical popular science on the mitigation of anxiety and depression in hemodialysis patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods One hundred and eleven cases of hemodialysis patients from Peking Union Medical College Hospital in April 2020 were recruited. After obtaining the baseline demographic data and psychological evaluation, patients were divided patients into self-reading group and WeChat group. A daily education of popular science of COVID-19 was introduced for the WeChat group. After 14 days, psychological evaluation was repeated to compare the anxiety and depression scores before and after inter- vention. Results One hundred and six valid questionnaires were obtained including 29 in the self-reading group and 77 in the WeChat group. Besides average age (higher in self-reading group, P＜0.05), there was no significant difference in dialysis vintage, occupation, education level and marital status between the two groups. After the intervention of WeChat science popularization, the scores of anxiety and depression of patients were significantly lower than before (P＜0.001), and the percentage of patients without anxiety increased significantly (P＜0.05); the depression score of the self-reading group was also higher than before (P＜0.01), but the anxiety score did not decrease. The patients' baseline depression scores is positively correlated with the dialysis vintage (P＜0.05). Conclusions Medical science popularization reduces thes anxiety and depression in hemodialysis patients; doctors-motivated science popularization can improve patients' anxiety more effectively than encouraging patients to check information of their own.

Key words: medical popular science, WeChat, hemodialysis, anxiety, depression

CLC Number:

R692.5

CHEN Gang, HAN Jian-fang, ZHOU Yang-zhong, SONG Dan, XIA Jing-hua, QIN Yan, CHEN Li-meng, LI Xue-mei. Effects of WeChat-based medical popular science on anxiety and depression of hemodialysis patients during the COVID-19 pandemic[J]. Basic & Clinical Medicine, 2021, 41(8): 1224-1230.

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