| Theme |
Maintenance Dialysis Patients -- Their Fluctnating Minds with Special References to “Depression” |
| Title |
Prevalence of depression among patients receiving hemodialysis in Japan |
| Author |
Hideyuki Matsuki |
Department of Psychiatry, Saitama Medical Center, Saitama Medical University |
| Author |
Maki Matsuki |
Department of Psychiatry, Saitama Medical Center, Saitama Medical University |
| Author |
Sayaka Kobayashi |
Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Women's Medical University |
| Author |
Naoshi Horikawa |
Department of Psychiatry, Saitama Medical Center, Saitama Medical University |
| [ Summary ] |
Patients receiving hemodialysis (HD) exhibit many kinds of psychiatric symptoms, the most frequent of which are depression and anxiety. Although it is very important to recognize depression in HD patients and treat it appropriately, few studies of this problem have been done. The aims of our study were to assess the prevalence of depression by using psychiatric diagnostic criteria for maintenance HD patients in Japan and to examine the reasons for international differences in depression prevalence among HD patients. The subjects of our study were admitted to the Kawagoe Ekimae Clinic which is a typical Japanese HD outpatient clinic. Patients were interviewed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). The prevalences of depression (major depressive episode) was 4.3 % (2.6 %). The prevalence of depression among HD patients in Japan was lower than that in Western countries. This may be because of the trans-national differences concerning medication for CRF, HD, and renal transplantation. |