Quality of life in chronic kidney disease.

BACKGROUND: The evaluation of health-related quality of life (QOL) in chronic kidney disease intends to quantify its consequences, according to the patient’s subjective perception. AIM: To evaluate the health-related QOL in four groups of patients followed at our Nephrology Department: chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages 1-4, kidney transplant (KT), haemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Thirty patients with CKD stages 1-4 and 30 KT patients were randomly selected. All patients from our Haemodialysis and Peritoneal Dialysis Units with capacity to answer the inquiry (37 and 14, respectively) were also selected. The instruments applied were the SF-36 and KDQOL-SF 1.3.
RESULTS: The four groups presented better results in the <<Social Functioning >> scale (77.68 ± 18.46 in PD; 74.17 ± 29.53 in KT; 66.81 ± 31.39 in CKD 1-4; 62.16 ± 32.84 in HD; p = 0.192). The lowest results appeared in the <<General Health>> scale (39.92 ± 19.12 in CKD; 45.95 ± 21.56 in HD; 47.13 ± 23.15 in KT; 51.79 ± 18.89 in PD; p = 0.321). Peritoneal dialysis patients achieved the best results in the Physical Health Component, but this difference disappeared after adjustment to confounding factors. Age, gender and haemoglobin level were the variables related with QOL. However, PD patients obtained better scores comparing to HD patients in the following KDQOL-SF scales: <<Effects of kidney disease>>, <<Burden of kidney disease>> and <<Patient satisfaction>> (p <0.05).
CONCLUSIONS: Health-related QOL was better in peritoneal dialysis patients comparing to haemodialysis patients in specific scales of chronic kidney disease. Age, gender and haemoglobin level interfered with health-related QOL.