Assessment of health-related quality of life of chronic kidney disease patients in aminu kano teaching hospital, Kano

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is increasing globally. Recently, the concept of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) is receiving attention as a measure of treatment outcome in addition to traditional morbidity and mortality rates. OBJECTIVE: To assess the HRQOL of CKD patients stages 1-5 using the Kidney Disease Quality of Life questionnaire (KDQOL). METHODOLOGY: The study was a cross-sectional study of CKD patients at a teaching hospital in north-western Nigeria during the study period. The quality of life, sociodemographic, clinical, and laboratory variables were assessed using a pro forma and the KDQOL questionnaire during regular clinic visits/dialysis sessions. Age and sex-matched healthy volunteers without evidence of renal disease were recruited from the hospital environment into a comparison group. RESULTS: A total of 150 subjects with CKD and 150 individuals in the comparison group completed the study with 77 males and 73 females for both groups. The mean ± standard deviation (SD) ages of the CKD and comparison group was 52.83 ± 14.21 and 52.43 ± 14.50 years, respectively. Subjects in the comparison group had higher physical composite summary (PCS) and mental composite summary (MCS) scores than individuals with CKD (P value < 0.05). Subjects with CKD showed a progressive decline in the scores of all HRQOL domains with advancing CKD stages (P value < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that subjects with CKD have worse HRQOL domain scores when compared to the normal population and these scores progressively worsened with advancing CKD stages.