The following is a summary of “Association between cognitive functioning and health-related quality of life and its mediation by depressive symptoms in older patients with kidney failure,” published in the September 2024 issue of Nephrology by Demirhan et al.
Older patients with kidney failure often experience impaired cognition, low health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and depressive symptoms, emphasizing the need to understand factors affecting their HRQoL.
Researchers conducted a prospective study to examine the association between cognitive functioning and HRQoL in older patients with kidney failure, and the mediating role of depressive symptoms.
They included outpatients aged 65 years and older from 35 hospitals in the Dutch and Belgium with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of 20 to 10 mL/min/1.73 m2, from the ongoing DIALOGICA study. Cognitive functioning was assessed with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and depressive symptoms were screened using the 2 Whooley Questions and evaluated with the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. HRQoL was measured using the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey, and analyses were conducted using multivariable regression and the PROCESS tool.
The results showed that 403 patients, with a mean age of 76.5 years (SD 5.8) and an eGFR of 14.5 mL/min/1.73 m2 (SD 3.0) were included. Cognitive functioning was positively associated with mental HRQoL (adjusted β 0.30, 95% CI 0.05;0.55) but not with physical HRQoL (adjusted β 0.18, 95% CI -0.09;0.44), and is mediated by depressive symptoms (adjusted β 0.14, 95% CI 0.04;0.25).
Investigators concluded that lower cognitive functioning negatively impacted mental HRQoL, mediated by depressive symptoms, and future research to examine whether cognitive interventions and depression treatment can improve HRQoL in this population.
Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40620-024-02095-3
