Kidney Medicine (Sep 2020)

Health-Related Quality of Life, Depressive Symptoms, and Kidney Transplant Access in Advanced CKD: Findings From the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) StudyPlain-Language Summary

  • Meera Nair Harhay,
  • Wei Yang,
  • Daohang Sha,
  • Jason Roy,
  • Boyang Chai,
  • Michael J. Fischer,
  • L. Lee Hamm,
  • Peter D. Hart,
  • Chi-yuan Hsu,
  • Yonghong Huan,
  • Anne M. Huml,
  • Radhakrishna Reddy Kallem,
  • Manjula Kurella Tamura,
  • Anna C. Porter,
  • Ana C. Ricardo,
  • Anne Slaven,
  • Sylvia E. Rosas,
  • Raymond R. Townsend,
  • Peter P. Reese,
  • James P. Lash,
  • Sanjeev Akkina,
  • Lawrence J. Appel, MD, MPH,
  • Harold I. Feldman, MD, MSCE,
  • Alan S. Go, MD,
  • Jiang He, MD, PhD,
  • John W. Kusek, PhD,
  • Panduranga Rao, MD,
  • Mahboob Rahman, MD

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 5
pp. 600 – 609.e1

Abstract

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Rationale & Objective: Among individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD), poor self-reported health is associated with adverse outcomes including hospitalization and death. We sought to examine the association between health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) and depressive symptoms in advanced CKD and subsequent access to the kidney transplant waiting list. Study Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting & Population: 1,676 Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) study participants with estimated glomerular filtration rates ≤ 30 mL/min/1.73 m2 at study entry or during follow-up. Exposures: HRQoL ascertained by 5 scales of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-36 Survey (Physical Component Summary [PCS], Mental Component Summary, Symptoms, Burdens, and Effects), with higher scores indicating better HRQoL, and depressive symptoms ascertained using the Beck Depression Inventory. Outcomes: Time to kidney transplant wait-listing and time to pre-emptive wait-listing. Analytic Approach: Time-to-event analysis using Cox proportional hazards regression. Results: During a median follow-up of 5.1 years, 652 (39%) participants were wait-listed, of whom 304 were preemptively wait-listed. Adjusted for demographics, comorbid conditions, estimated glomerular filtration rate slope, and cognitive function, participants with the highest scores on the Burden and Effects scales, respectively, had lower rates of wait-listing than those with the lowest scores on the Burden (wait-listing adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 0.70; 95% CI, 0.57-0.85; P < 0.001) and Effects scales (wait-listing aHR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.59-0.92; P = 0.007). Participants with fewer depressive symptoms (ie, Beck Depression Inventory score < 14) had lower wait-listing rates than those with more depressive symptoms (aHR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.66-0.99; P = 0.04). Participants with lower Burden and Effects scale scores and those with higher Symptoms and PCS scores had higher pre-emptive wait-listing rates (aHR in highest tertile of PCS relative to lowest tertile, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.12-2.23; P = 0.01). Limitations: Unmeasured confounders. Conclusions: Self-reported health in late-stage CKD may influence the timing of kidney transplantation.

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