Psychological predictors for health-related quality of life in patients on peritoneal dialysis

It is currently recognized the impact of different clinical and sociodemographics variables on the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (DP), albeit the influence of psychological variable has not been thoroughly studied. The objective of this study is to identify the psychological predictors of HRQL in patients under DP.

53 patients on DP participated in the study (49.54 ± 17.03 years, 54.7% women) in whom HRQL was evaluated by the Kidney Disease Quality of Life Short Form and it was obtained information related with psychological variables (depressive and anxious symptoms , alexithymia, health-related locus of control and coping strategies) besides socio-demographical and clinical variables.

Patients on DP presented a worse HRQL than general population, particularly in the physical dimension. The comorbility, the number of visits to urgency department, previous hospital admissions, serum albumin and previous treatment with hemodialysis showed a negative impact on several dimensions of HRQL, but depressive symptoms, alexithymia and particularly anxious symptoms were the main determinants of the variability of HRQL in DP patients. We did not obtain a significant relationship between HRQL and the locus of control or the coping strategies.

Among patients undergoing DP, anxiety, depression and alexithymia are important determinants of HRQL and they should be considered both in the evaluation and the treatment of this population of patients.