OBJECTIVES: The main aim of the study is to assess the quality of life among patients with different stages of Chronic Kidney Disease.

METHODS: A prospective observational study was conducted for a period of 6 months in a tertiary care hospital in south India. Patients diagnosed with 3 to 5 and HD stages CKD who are aged 18 years and above were included and renal transplant recipients and pregnant and lactating women were excluded in the study. Source of data were collected from the patient medical records and quality of life (QOL) using Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form questionnaire and Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) Scale. Descriptive analysis was done for demographic data. The P value of <0.05 was considered as significant.

RESULTS: A total of 201 patients were enrolled in the study. Majority of the study population were male (n=137). Among the stages of CKD, physical functioning was found to be low in stage 3 & 4 patients with mean ± SD of 37.70±21.54 and 37.28±21.85 respectively. The quality of social interaction showing lower values for stage 5 as 63.33±23.53. The cognitive function seems to be low (65.28±20.21) in HD. Dialysis staff encouragement is high (75.64±18.73) in patients undergoing HD and seems to be lowered in other stages since they do not undergo dialysis. Patient satisfaction mostly affecting stage 5. The Karnofsky Performance Status Scale is an artificial construct which measures a patient’s activity level using an 11-point Scale. The study evaluated KPS in the patients with different stages of CKD. Statistically significant difference (p-value >0.05) were not found in the performance score among the patients.

CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates that QOL declines with advanced stages of CKD (QOL is poor in patients who are on dialysis). The KPS indicates that functional status is not decreased in the patients.