Abstract
This study examines religious faith as associated with adjustment to end-stage renal failure and its treatment regimen of maintenance hemodialysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected initially and after a three-year interval in order to observe changes over time. The variable of the patient's perception of the import of religious faith was found to be positively related to interactional behavior and sick role behavior and to be inversely associated with alienation. Content analysis of qualitative responses for the item of perceived import of religious faith revealed a pattern of increasingly more positive patient attitudes occurring over time.
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Normlessness is defined sociologically as a “condition characterized by the absence of an organized system of social norms or values that enable an individual to choose the most desirable action in a situation.” Theodorson, G.A., and Theodorson, A.G.,A Modern Dictionary of Sociology. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1969, p. 277.
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O'Brien,Hemodialysis and Effective Social Environment, op. cit.: Some Social and Social Psychological Correlates of Treatment for Chronic Renal Failure, unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1976, Chapter VII, Religion and Chronic Renal Failure, p. 145.
Ibid., O'Brien, M. E.,Hemodialysis and Effective Social Environment: Some Social and Social Psychological Correlates of Treatment for Chronic Renal Failure, unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1976, Chapter VII, Religion and Chronic Renal Failure, pp. 142–145.
Ibid., O'Brien, M. E.,Hemodialysis and Effective Social Environment: Some Social and Social Psychological Correlates of Treatment for Chronic Renal Failure, unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1976, Chapter VII, Religion and Chronic Renal Failure, pp. 145–146.
Ibid., O'Brien, M. E.,Hemodialysis and Effective Social Environment: Some Social and Social Psychological Correlates of Treatment for Chronic Renal Failure, unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1976, Chapter VII, Religion and Chronic Renal Failure, pp. 147–150.
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Time 1 references and analyses, descriptive of the initial phase of this panel study, were adapted in part from the author's doctoral dissertation, “Hemodialysis and Effective Social Environment: Some Social and Social Psychological Correlates of the Treatment for Chronic Renal Failure,” The Catholic University of America, 1976.
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O'Brien, M.E. Religious faith and adjustment to long-term hemodialysis. J Relig Health 21, 68–80 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02273896
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02273896