Objective: To compare the utility scores and quality of life scores between patients who have twice and thrice-weekly hemodialysis.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional analytical study in 5 hemodialysis sites of the Nephrology Unit at Siriraj Hospital (the largest university hospital in Thailand), face-to-face interview using EuroQol questionnaire (EQ-5D), VAS, and KDQOL-36 (consists of 3 kidney disease subscales and SF-12) which was conducted between April 2011 and June 2011. One hundred and fifty three hemodialysis patients were recruited from the chronic hemodialysis clinic unit. This study compared the difference of hemodialysis times weekly to utility scores and quality of life scores of patients by using Independent Student’s t-test.
Results: SF-6D (derived from SF12), EQ-5D (UK and Thai preference weight), and VAS between the patients who received twice and thrice-weekly hemodialysis were not significantly different (p>0.05). This is also true for symptom/ problem list, effects of kidney disease, and burden of kidney disease scores. For SF-12, all physical and mental domains were not significantly different and similarly all utility and kidney disease specific scores were not significantly associated with hemodialysis times in weekly intervals (all, p>0.05).
Conclusion: These findings implied that thrice-weekly hemodialysis could not reflect the better quality of life more than twice-weekly hemodialysis. There was no significant difference in quality of life from the symptom/ problem list, effects of kidney disease, and burden of kidney disease between twice and thrice-weekly hemodialysis as well as the utility scores from SF-6D, EQ-5D and VAS. However, a further large cohort study of utility scores or cost effectiveness analysis between the difference of dialysis frequency at weekly intervals should be conducted.