Factors associated with quality-of-life among Kuwaiti patients on maintenance hemodialysis

Abstract

ABSTRACTMeasuring Quality-of-life (QOL) and determining its correlates for hemodialysis (HD) patients is important for interventions’ design and clinical decision-making. Three hundred and thirty-six patients with end-stage-renal-disease (ESRD) from six centers provided data using SF-36. Descriptive analysis of QOL was conducted and linear regression was used to model the relationship between QOL and several covariates.Patients have mean (SD) age 55.3 (13.4) years, mainly females (56.5%), between 41 and 60 years (47.9%), Married (61.6%), retired (45.5%), with income >1000 KD (51.2%). Most patients were diagnosed with ESRD ≥ one year ago (88.1%), have diabetes as primary cause of ESRD (38.1%), on dialysis for ≥ three years (50.0%). Significant differences in QOL were among gender (PV < 0.001), education levels (PV < 0.001), employment status (PV < 0.001), and income (PV = 0.003). Being male (PV = 0.047), employed (PV = 0.098) were associated with increase in QOL. Patients with income <500 KD (PV = 0.061), diagnosed with ESRD during last 6–12 months (PV = 0.049) were associated with decrease in QOL after adjusting for other covariates.In conclusion, QOL is worse among females, unemployed, those with income <500 KD, and those diagnosed with ESRD between 6 and 12 months. Interventions for patients with worse QOL will reduce hospitalizations, risk of cardiovascular events and other co-morbidities.