Resumen de Evaluación de la calidad de vida en pacientes de una unidad de hemodiálisis con el cuestionario Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form (KDQOL-SF)
F. Martín, A. Reig, F. Sarró, R. Ferrer, D. Arenas, F. González, T. Gil
The objective of the present work was to assess and to quantify the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in a representative group of patients from our haemodialysis unit, and to identify the main aspects of the renal disease and its treatment influencing the HRQOL. The HRQOL was quantified using a modular instrument, KDQOL-SF, in its Spanish adaptation.
In the generic part our patients expressed a decrease in vitality, overall health and physical fitness in relation to the general population, reaching better punctuations in the social and mental functions. In the specific part, the labor function was the dimension in which the lowest punctuations were obtained, because only 26.3% of our patients in productive age carried out a paid-job. The age, the comorbidity and the time on hemodialysis were the main determinants of the HRQOL, although they only justified a small percentage of the variance (from 11.5% in the labor function to 29.2% in the physical fitness). The stress conditioned by the renal disease was the only aspect related with the renal disease and its treatment playing a role on the global perception of health. The women, the diabetics and those with a history of a previous renal transplant, presented lower indicators of quality of life. There were no differences in relation to the ethiology of the end-stage renal disease, the education level or the labor status. Our results suggest a good psychological adaptation of the patients to the hemodialysis treatment, despite the limitations in physical function conditioned by the renal disease and its treatment.
