Health-related quality of life in elderly patients in haemodialysis

Introduction: In view of the increasing interest in measuring health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and that is widely accepted Quality of life (QL) is a valid marker of results of treatment in chronic dialysis, we marked the aim to determine QL of the patients greater than or equal to 75 years in chronic haemodialysis and to determine the influence of different factors (comorbidity, analytical, cognitive deterioration, depression and self-sufficiency) over the results. Methods: We used the Kidney Disease Quality of Life (KDQOL-SF(TM)), questionnaire of health that has been become an useful instrument for measuring CV into this population. Demographic and analytical data, comorbidity (Charlson Index), depression (Yesavage), self-sufficiency (Karnotsky) and impaired cognitive function (Cognitive Mini-Exam) were collected. We evaluated the influence of these factors on the different dimensions of the KDQOl-SF(TM) and compared our scores with general Spanish population scores standardised according to age and sex. Results: We included 51 patients (24 men) with a mean age 79.5 +/- 3.7 years and 39 +/- 56 months in dialysis. Women had lower scores than men in all scales of KDQOL-SF(TM). We found that months in dialysis, depression scale, Karnofsky scale and cognitive deterioration test. were also influencing about these scores. Multivariate analysis showed that CV is especially associated with sex, depression, cognitive deterioration and self-sufficiency. After we calculated standardised scores according to age and gender, out population showed a level of CV lower than general population, especially in female gender. Conclusions: In our population the women had worse CV than men. The CV of the elders in HD is lower than general population of equal sex and age and it was not modified with factors related to the end-stage renal disease and its treatment. Suffering from cognitive deterioration or depression had an important impact on the well-being of our patients, which would justify a wider diagnostic and therapeutic boarding in these patients.