QUALITY-OF-LIFE FOR HEMODIALYSIS - IMPACT OF SEX, AGE, DIALYSIS DURATION, PRIMARY RENAL-DISEASE AND HEMODIALYSIS AFTER TRANSPLANT FAILURE

Quality of life measurements play an important role for finding out th e optimal therapy of various chronic diseases. In our quality of life assessment with the questionnaire QLQ-C 30 of the EORTC the impact of the factors sex, age, dialysis period, primary renal disease and trans plant failure should be measured in patients on chronic intermittent h emodialysis therapy. 69 of 82 patients on regular dialysis treatment, at the age of 55.7 +/- 14.4 years and on chronic intermittent hemodial ysis therapy since 33 +/- 29 months, from our dialysis unit participat ed in quality of life measurement. The patients were grouped to age, d ialysis period, sex and primary renal disease. The outstanding results were the decline of physical efficiency with increasing age (p < 0.05 ), duration of dialysis (p < 0.001) as well as reduced cognitive funct ioning (p < 0.05) and higher pain sensitivity (p < 0.01) the longer di alysis duration was. There are sex-specific differences, females in co mparison to male patients have diminished physical functioning (47.2 v s. 67.8; p < 0.01), decreased global quality of life (46.7 vs. 55.9; p < 0.05) and frequently suffer from fatigue (p < 0.05), pain (p < 0.05 ), appetite loss (p < 0.05) and nausea/vomiting (p < 0.01). The essent ial impact factors were duration of dialysis and sex with the conseque nce to require the maximal adequacy of dialysis for every patient.