Evaluation of Pruritus Self-Management among Hemodialysis Patients in Baghdad Teaching Hospitals

To evaluate self-management concerning pruritus among hemodialysis patients and to find-out the association between self-management, sociodemoghraphic characteristic of age, gender, and education qualification. A descriptive design, using the evaluation approach, is carried out in Baghdad teaching hospitals in order to evaluate pruritus self-management from November 16^th 2016 to the end of May 17^th 2017. Purposive (non-probability) sample, which is consisted of 62 hemodialysis patients. A questionnaire is designed and constructed for the purpose of the study. The questionnaire is comprised of three parts: part 1: Participants’ sociodemographic characteristics composed of (5 items), part 11: participants’ clinical characteristics composed of (3 items) and part 111: description of participants’ self-management composed of (13 items). Reliability and validity of the questionnaire is determined through pilot study. Data are collected through the use of the questionnaire and the structured interview as means of data collection. The results show that the level of pruritus self-management among hemodialysis patients more than a half is fair (n = 32; 51.6%), followed by a poor self-management for more than a third of them (n = 22; 35.5%), and a good self-management for a small proportion (n 8; 12.9%).