Effects of chronic diseases on family functions and life satisfactions of the patients

Designed to observe the affect of the chronic diseases on the family functions and life satisfactions, this research indicates the family functions and life satisfaction levels of individuals with chronic diseases the relationship between these two variables. Besides, changes of these levels depending on sex, chronic disease group and chronic disease durations are examined.The research is structured as basic research according to research targets, the field study according to the environment in which it has been carried out and descriptive research according to its method.Sample of the research is defined as Chronic Diseases Group comprising of adult individuals with a certain chronic disease and Control Group with no chronic diseases. Chronic Diseases Group includes 120 people; Chronis Kidney Disease (40), Diabetics (40) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) (40) and the whole sample includes 240 people along with Control Group.Voluntary Information Form, Demographic Information Form, Family Evaluation Scale and Life Satisfaction Scale are used in the research to collect data. While data for Chronic Diseases Group is obtained from patients treated at Dokuz Eylul University Internal Diseases Department Division of Endocrinology, Division of Nephrology and Izmir Provincial Directorate of Health Tepecik ad Bozkaya Training and Research Hospital Department of Neurology, data for Control Group is obtained from Izmir residents randomly.Data are assessed and analyzed statistically with SPSS 16.0 program. Under the light of the findings, it is revealed that there are no differentiations or relationship between family functions and life satisfactions of Chronic Diseases Group and Control Group. Although family functions and life satisfaction levels of Chronic Diseases Group differ depending on certain subscales such as sex, chronic diseases subgroups and chronic diseases duration, no significant differentiation in general has been observed.KeywordsChronic Disease, Chronic Kidney Disease, Diabetics, Multiple SclerosisFamily Functions, Life Satisfaction