About the Authors

Antje Albring

Contributed equally to this work with: Antje Albring, Laura Wendt

Affiliation Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany

Laura Wendt

Contributed equally to this work with: Antje Albring, Laura Wendt

Affiliation Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany

Sven Benson

Affiliation Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany

Oliver Witzke

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

Andreas Kribben

Affiliation Department of Nephrology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

Harald Engler

Affiliation Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany

Manfred Schedlowski

manfred.schedlowski@uk-essen.de

Affiliation Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AA LW HE OW AK MS. Performed the experiments: AA LW. Analyzed the data: AA LW SB HE. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MS OW AK. Wrote the paper: AA LW MS. Revised the article critically for important intellectual content: MS HE SB OW AK.