The following is a summary of “Educational level and gender are associated with emotional well-being in a cohort of Dutch dialysis patients,” published in the May 2024 issue of Nephrology by Bakker et al.
Patients undergoing dialysis often have a lower health-related quality of life. However, it is still being determined if factors like education affect this.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to verify how the educational level influences the HRQOL in patients undergoing dialysis.
The Kidney Disease Quality of Life Short Form-36 (KDQOL-SF36) was used to measure HRQOL in patients undergoing chronic dialysis. Patients were categorized into low, intermediate, and high education groups. The impact of age, gender, ethnicity, and dialysis duration on the relationship between HRQOL and education was analyzed using regression analyses.
The results showed that among 129 patients undergoing dialysis, those with intermediate education had 4.37 (1.89-10.13) times higher odds of better emotional well-being than those with low education levels. A similar trend was notable in patients undergoing dialysis with high educational levels (OR 4.13 [1.04-16.42), P=0.044). Women had 2.83 (1.32-6.06) times higher odds of better general health and 2.59 (1.15-5.84) times higher odds of better emotional well-being than men. No interaction between gender and educational level for both subdomains was found. Each year of age decreased physical functioning by 0.94 (0.91-0.97) times.
Investigators concluded that females and patients undergoing dialysis with intermediate or higher education tended to have better emotional well-being. Also, physical functioning kept declining with age.
Source: bmcnephrol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12882-024-03617-8