Quality of life of patients after kidney transplant: ADHERE Brazil multicenter cross-sectional study

Background

Quality of life (QoL) is a measure to evaluate kidney transplant (KT) results.

Aim

To describe the QoL profile in a larger sample of Brazilian patients who underwent KT according to age, sex, and access to KT.

Methods

We conducted a secondary data analysis of the ADHERE BRAZIL multicenter cross-sectional study including 1105 patients from 20 centers, considering KT access region and transplant activity. QoL was assessed by the WHOQOL-BREF. Data was compared using Generalized Estimating Equations.

Results

Overall, 58.5 % of the patients were men, mean age of 47.6 ± 12.6 years. The general QoL score was 81 ± 15.1, 58.6 ± 11.6 for physical, 65.5 ± 11.4 for psychological, 68.3 ± 17.1 for social relationships, and 64.2 ± 13.3 for environmental domain. Higher QoL scores were observed in men compared to women in three WHOQOL-BREF domains: psychological (OR:2.62; CI, 1.29 ̶ 3.95, p < 0.0001), social relationships (OR:3.21; CI, 1.2 ̶ 5.23, p = 0.002) and environmental (OR:3.79; CI:2.23 ̶ 5.35, p < 0.0001). Younger patients (18–44 years) had higher scores in the psychological (OR:-2.69; CI, −4.13 ̶ -1.25; p < 0.001; OR:-3.52; CI, −5.39 ̶ -1.66; p < 0.001) and social (OR:-3.46; CI, −5.64 ̶ -1.27; p = 0.002; OR:-7.17; CI, −10 ̶ -4.35; p < 0.0001) domains than older ones (45–59 and > 60 years, respectively). Patients from higher KT access region had higher scores in environmental domain (OR:3.53; CI, 0.28 ̶ 6.78; p = 0.033).

Conclusions

Featuring the results of KT under patient view, the physical and social relationships domains were the most and least affected, respectively. Lower QoL subgroups (females and age > 45 years) should be targeted in future multi-professional interventions.