Elsevier

Transplantation Proceedings

Volume 47, Issue 6, July–August 2015, Pages 1732-1735
Transplantation Proceedings

Emerging Perspectives in Transplantation
Renal transplantation
Assessment of the Changes in Health-related Quality of Life After Kidney Transplantation in a Cohort of 232 Thai Patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.transproceed.2015.02.018Get rights and content

Abstract

Aim

The aim of this study was to investigate QoL of these patients before and after KT and to determine relationships between basic factors of gender, age, educational background, marital status, income, and QoL of patients after undergoing KT.

Methods

A retrospective study to determine HQoL of 232 ESRD patients who received KT in a single center in Thailand. HQoL was determined by 3 methods: WHO questionnaires, EQ5D questionnaires, and visual analog scale (VAS) questionnaires. Other important demographic information including gender, age, education, marital status, and family income were recorded. Pre- and post-KT HQoL was scored and compared. The Pearson method was used to calculate correlation statistics.

Results

WHO QoL is significantly improved in all domains including physical health, psychological health, social health, and environmental health after KT (P < .001). EQ5D QoL is also significantly improved after KT for the categories of self-mobility, self-care, pain, distress, anxiety, and depression. The mean score of VAS before KT was 40.98 and rose to 83.10 after KT (P < .001). Gender and marital status were not significantly correlated with quality of life. The level of education and average income of the family are positively correlated with increased QoL after KT (P < .01 and P < .001). However, age is negatively correlated with increased QoL (P < .05).

Conclusion

Successful KT leads to a significant increase of HQoL as determined by 3 independent measurements. The improvement is shown by better physical health, psychosocial health, environmental health, and functional abilities of the transplant recipients. Our results confirm that KT should be the treatment of choice for patients with ESRD.

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

The study was descriptive retrospective research. Data were collected from patients who had undergone KT at Ramathibodi Hospital between 2005 and 2010 and returned home. The aims of the study were to investigate QoL of these patients before and after KT and to determine relationships between basic factors of gender, age, educational background, marital status, income, and QoL of patients after undergoing KT. The Thai version of the QoL scale of the World Health Organization was used to collect

Results

According to the study findings, 232 subjects participated in the study. Of these, 62.1% were male and 36.6% were female. Most subjects (87.7%) were adults between 33 and 60 years old. As regards income, most subjects (85.6%) had family incomes of 50,000 baht per month or less. Close to two-thirds (65.1%) were married and nearly half (45.5%) held a bachelor's degree or equivalent.

When considering overall QoL of subjects before KT, almost three-quarters, or 72.8%, had a moderate level of QoL,

Discussion

According to the study findings, the mean scores of overall QoL before and after KT were statistically significantly different. This meant that after KT, the QoL of patients improved with a statistical significance of P < .001. Such a finding was in congruence with the findings regarding QoL measured with the EQ5D and health status determined with the VAS. When considering each aspect of QoL, it could be seen that the scores for negative items of the physical aspects, the psychological aspect,

References (9)

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