A comparison of health-related quality of life in patients with renal failure under hemodialysis and healthy participants

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the health-related quality of life (QoL) of patients under hemodialysis (HD) and to compare this to healthy participants. We compared 154 patients on HD to 308 healthy age- and sex-matched controls recruited from Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Babol, Northern Iran in 2014. The data of health-related QoL in eight subscales were collected with interview using a standard short-form questionnaire of short form-36. The demographic data and dry weight and height were measured. The scores of each subscale were transformed from 0 (the worse state) to 100 (the best state). In univariate analysis, Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare the distribution of scores between cases and controls according to gender, and multiple linear regression analysis was used to adjust the regression coefficient for possible potential confounding factors. The mean overall score of health-related QoL for men was 44.7 ± 23.2 and 74.3 ± 18.1 in patients and controls, respectively, and for women was 37.1 ± 20.8 and 62.1 ± 18.7, respectively. In all subscales, the mean score of patients was significantly lower than controls (P = 0.001) in both sexes. In all eight subscales, after adjusting for demographic characteristics, the patients had significantly lower QoL than controls (P = 0.001). In addition, the independent effect of age, gender, and educational level as predictors of QoL was significant across various subscales (P = 0.001).