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A Doença Renal Crônica (DRC) é caracterizada por seu caráter lento, progressivo e irreversível, o que contribui para a redução da qualidade de vida observada nos pacientes acometidos por essa condição. Neste contexto, vale ressaltar que devido à crise econômica na Venezuela, houve um fluxo significativo de migrantes venezuelanos, alguns dos quais sofrem de problemas de saúde como a DRC, buscando refúgio no Brasil, particularmente no estado de Roraima. Nossos objetivos foram avaliar e comparar a qualidade de vida de pacientes brasileiros e venezuelanos com DRC em tratamento de hemodiálise (HD) em Roraima.
This is a cross-sectional, observational, and descriptive research study, approved by the Research Ethics Committee, conducted with 116 CKD patients on HD in Roraima between September 2022 and July 2023. A sociodemographic questionnaire and the Kidney Disease Quality Of Life Instrument-Short Form (KDQOL-SF) questionnaire were administered, and a descriptive analysis of the data was conducted.
Out of the 116 CKD patients on hemodialysis, 26.72% were Venezuelan, and 73.28% were Brazilian. Furthermore, 58.82% of the Brazilians were male, and 58.06% of the Venezuelans were female. Among the Brazilians, 51.77% were aged between 45 and 64, 44.71% were single, and 67.06% earned up to one minimum wage. Among the Venezuelans, 64.52% were aged between 20 and 44, 74.19% were single, and 96.77% earned up to one minimum wage. Additionally, 34.12% of the Brazilian patients had incomplete elementary education, while 49.39% of the Venezuelan patients had completed high school. Regarding comorbidities, when comparing Brazilians and Venezuelans, differences were observed in arterial hypertension (82.35% vs. 74.19%), diabetes mellitus (32.94% vs. 3.22%), and autoimmune diseases (7.05% vs. 12.90%) (table 1). In terms of quality of life, the most significant differences in means between Brazilians and Venezuelans were observed in the domains of "cognitive function" (77.96 ± 20.63 vs. 67.96 ± 17.92), "sleep" (68.56 ± 19.69 vs. 61.69 ± 21.23), "patient satisfaction" (67.65 ± 17.32 vs. 76.34 ± 22.68), "physical functioning" (58.12 ± 27.41 vs. 73.39 ± 21.62), "role limitations-physical" (25.88 ± 32.61 vs. 35.48 ± 40.71), "pain" (61.79 ± 30.81 vs. 72.02 ± 26.10), "role limitations-emotional" (50.59 ± 43.83 vs. 72.04 ± 40.46), "social support" (86.67 ± 20.38 vs. 70.43 ± 28.77), and "general health" (51.53 ± 21.49 vs. 61.29 ± 21.98) (table 2).
Conclusions
Therefore, differences in the characteristics of the two populations are observed. Venezuelan patients are characterized by being younger, having more females, lower income, higher education levels, a lower prevalence of diabetes mellitus, and a higher prevalence of autoimmune diseases. Regarding quality of life, Brazilians achieved higher scores in “effects of kidney disease”, “cognitive function”, “quality of social interaction”, “sleep” and “social support”. Meanwhile, Venezuelans scored higher in “patient satisfaction”, “physical functioning”, “role limitations-physical”, “pain”, “general health”, “role limitations-emotional”, “energy/fatigue” and “SF-12 physical health composite". As a result, there is an urgent need to better understand both of the studied populations to provide improved assistance and care to them.