Effect of COvid-19 on Mental Health in Syrian and Turkish Maintenance HemoDialysis Patients: COST-HD Study

SARS-COV infection first has begun at Wuhan, China, and then became a pandemic. The first COVID-19 case has been reported on March 11, 2020, in Turkey. People older than 65 years old have been locked down on March 21 and people younger than 20 years old locked down at April 03. A total lockdown has been done a few times lasting for 3 or 4 days, especially at weekends.

Renal replacement modalities have been affected in different ways during the pandemic. Patients with kidney transplantation and patients performing home hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis have been advised to perform self-isolation at homes. However, center hemodialysis patients continued to come dialysis centers obligatorily.

Syrian civil war has been continuing since 2011, and Turkey has accepted millions of Syrian people in a position called temporary protection. There are many Syrian center hemodialysis patients both in Turkey and in our unit. The investigators do not know if pandemic affected Syrian patients different than Turkish ones. The aim of this study is to compare beck depression scores of Turkish and Syrian patients undergoing hemodialysis during the COVID-19 pandemic.