Objectives: Health-related quality of life is increasingly used as an important measurement of treatment outcome. Here, quality of life parameters in renal transplant recipients were evaluated and compared with patients with chronic kidney disease on maintenance hemodialysis and with those who were not on dialysis.
Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study included patients seen at a number of tertiary renal care hospitals (there were 15 renal transplant recipients, 20 patients on maintenance hemodialysis, and 28 patients with chronic kidney disease not on dialysis). Forty healthy individual were also included as the control group. Different biochemical parameters were analyzed. Quality of life was assessed with the KDQOL-SF-36 (version 1.3) questionnaire.
Results: Mean age was 39 ± 11 for transplant patients, 43 ± 11 years for patients on hemodialysis, 49 ± 12 years for patients with chronic kidney disease not on dialysis, and 34 ± 11 years for the healthy control group. Distribution of sex was similar. Transplant recipients had higher quality of life scores, with some scores similar to healthy controls patients, like physical function (P = .85) and social function (P = .25). Scores were 100 ± 12, 69 ± 27, 37 ± 28, and 91 ± 10 (P < .001) for physical function; 94 ± 12, 44 ± 17, 30 ± 14, and 69 ± 29 (P < .001) for pain; 99 ± 11, 61 ± 46, 24 ± 15, and 70 ± 28 (P < .001) for social function; and 91 ± 11, 51 ± 13, 40 ± 7, and 66 ± 11 (P < .001) for energy/fatigue in healthy control, chronic kidney disease patients not on dialysis, hemodialysis patients, and transplant recipients, respectively.
Conclusions: Quality of life is poor in patients with chronic kidney disease. However, renal transplant can improve quality of life. Transplant patients showed many quality of life scores similar to healthy individuals.