Reactions of families to chronic hemodialysis. A preliminary report.

13 families of patients on chronic hemodialysis (with young children at home) were contacted by the social worker. Only seven of them agreed to a family interview, which took place at the patient's home. Although the interviews were unstructured some topics were brought up by all families and similar behavior was observed. Specially striking was the lack of empathy as well as of hostility between the parents, while a lot of hostility against all human environment was expressed and children's attempts at expressing empathy were suppressed.