Abstract: Objective: To explore the potential categories and characteristic differences of the meaning in life among Maintenance Hemodialysis (MHD) patients, so as to provide references for targeted interventions. Methods: From March to April 2025, a convenience sampling method was used to select 231 MHD patients from three dialysis centers of two hospitals in Zhejiang and Xinjiang as research subjects. In the study, we adopted a general information questionnaire, the Chinese version of Meaning in Life Scale, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the Social Dysfunction Screening Scale for investigation. Latent profile analysis was adopted to establish a latent category model, and Logistic regression was used to analyze the influencing factors of the potential categories. Results: The scores of MHD patients were (44.53±11.80) points. Three different potential categories of life meaning were identified, named respectively as "low meaning in life-withdrawal type", "moderate meaning in life-adaptation type", and "high meaning in life-active type", accounting for 22.51%, 54.55% and 22.94%, separately. Logistic regression showed that educational level, dialysis vintage, anxiety, depression and social dysfunction were influencing factors of the potential categories in MHD patients (P<0.05). Conclusion: Obvious classification characteristics in meaning in life can be observed among MHD patients. Medical staff can implement targeted intervention measures for MHD patients according to their characteristics of different potential profiles to improve patients' meaning in life.

Key words: hemodialysis; meaning in life; latent profile analysis; influencing factor