Abstract:
The main purpose of the research was to study of the relationship between health values, the characteristic of hardiness and self-care behaviors in chronic renal failure patients. The sample consisted of 180 patients receiving support threatment at an out-patient renal clinic. The researcher developed questionnaires based on demorgraphic data which was composed of three parts, a health value scale, Pollock, and Duffy's health related hardiness scale (HRHS : Pollock, & Duffy, 1990) and a self-care behavior scale. The descriptive statistics used were distribution, percent, mean, standard deviation as well as inferential statistics inclueding Pearson's product moment correlation co-efficient and a stepwise multiple regression analysis. The results revealed that health values, hardiness and self-care behaviors in chronic renal failure patients were rated at a good level. There were significant and positive correlations between the following factors: health values and self-care behavior (p<.001); perception of susceptibility and self-care behavior (p<.001); perception of severity and self-care behavior (p<.001); perception of benifits and self-care behavior (p<.01); perception of barriers and self-care behavior (p<.001); perception of motivation and self-care behavior (p<.001) and patient-nurse interactions and self-care behavior (p<.001). Other significant and positive correlations occurred between the factors of hardiness and self-care behavior (p<.001), control and self-care behavior (p<.001), commitment and self-care behavior (p<.001) and personal challenge and self-care behavior (p<.001). The results of the stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that 42.72 percent of the variance of self-care behavior was accounted for by three significant predictors, namely the characteristic of hardiness and the control score, the health value in susceptibility, and the health value in barriers score.