Objective: To assess the subjective sleep quality and its relationship with the presence of psychiatric morbidity in the patients suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD) and undergoing the procedure of hemodialysis (HD); and analyze the associated socio-demographic factors.
Study design: Cross-sectional descriptive study.
Place and duration of study: Nephrology Department, Military Hospital, Rawalpindi, from July to December 2016.
Methodology: Patients of CKD undergoing the HD were included in the final analysis. Quality of sleep was determined by using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Psychiatric morbidity was determined by the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12). Relationship of education, BMI, gender, age, duration of dialysis, dialysis count per week, marital status, level of family income, psychiatric morbidity, occupation, biochemical markers (urea, creatinine, BUN, albumin, calcium, phosphorous and hemoglobin), tobacco smoking, and use of naswar was determined with the sleep quality.
Results: One hundred and forty patients were screened through the PSQI; 44 (31.4%) had good quality of sleep while 96 (68.6%) had poor sleep quality. Statistical analysis revealed that presence of psychiatric morbidity, increasing age, female gender, being unmarried, low family income, and low frequency of dialysis had significant association with the poor sleep quality.
Conclusion: Poor sleep quality was highly prevalent among the patients of CKD receiving the hemodialysis. The patients with low family income, more age, and with two or less dialysis sessions per week should be screened thoroughly for the sleep problems. Presence of psychiatric morbidity emerged as an independent factor responsible for the poor sleep quality in our target population.