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Collegium antropologicum, Vol. 32 No. 2, 2008.

Original scientific paper

Anthropological Aspect of Death in Dialyzed Patients

Milan Novaković
Dragan Babić
Aleksandar Milovanović
Danijela Tiosavljević-Marić
Radmila Novaković
Mitar Novaković

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Abstract

The aim of this article is to compare the incidence of thanatophobia in dialysed patients having Balkan endemic
nephropathy (BEN) with a control group (N18) members where some of them have chronic renal failure (CRF), but not
(BEN).We examined thanatophobia on a sample of 753 dialysed patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (B&H) during the period from 1st January 2000 to 31st December 2006. The first group is a cohort consisted
of 348 patients with Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN), and the control group consisted of 405 randomly selected patients
with different diagnoses of CRF (N18). The measurement instruments used were: General data list, Eysenck’s Personality
Questionnaire (EPQ), Beck’s Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Hamilton’s Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), and Mini-
-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Univariante and multivariante statistical analyses were carried out. From the
multivariante analysis, the highest correlations with thanatophobia were found in these variables: avoidance of dialysis
in BEN group: R=0.985, OR=0.358, CI=0.483–0.728 (95%), and in control group: R=0.550, OR=0.935, CI=0.615–0.830
(95%), age, years on dialysis, education, pervasive fear with statistical significance P =0.001. BEN group differentiates
from control group: BAI-total (R=1.110, OR=0.578 (95%), CI=0.770–0.890, P=0.001), HDRS-total (R=0.995, OR=1.290
(95%), CI=1.180–1.920 P =0.001. BEN group have lower scores than the control group in MMSE-total: (R=0.430, OR=
0.023 (95%), CI=0.034–2.850, P =0.001) which represents the organic part of anxiety. Thanatophobia is present in both
groups, but it is more frequent in the BEN (11.70%) than in control group (7.50%). We found that thanatophobia occurs
before dialysis, and that it is structured as a pervasive fear of death and is associated with endemia, years spent on dialysis,
and avoidance of dialysis.

Keywords

thanatophobia; dialysis; Balkan endemic nephropathy; Bosnia and Herzegovina

Hrčak ID:

27178

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/27178

Publication date:

7.7.2008.

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