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End-stage kidney disease (ESKD) is a chronic degenerative disease that cause a great impact on people's quality of life. Pruritus, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome associated with chronic kidney disease cause discomfort, noncompliance to treatment and even worse outcomes.
The prevalence of these symptoms has not been clearly defined in Latin America.
The objective of the study was to find the prevalence and risk factors for developing uncomfortable symptoms in patients undergoing renal replacement therapy (RRT).
A case-control study was done to document the presence of pruritus and other uncomfortable symptoms in patients undergoing RRT with hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) at UNIREAS, renal therapy center in the city of Cuenca - Ecuador. Clinical and biochemical variables were documented. Data analysis was carried out with the SPSS.v26 and Excel 2019.
A total of 215 patients on RRT who met the inclusion criteria were involved, 81% (n=175) were on HD and 19% (n=40) on PD. 53% (n=115) of the patients presented pruritus, the most frequent location were on the back 58% and extremities 31%, with a of frequency of 47% daily, 28% every 48 hours. The average intensity was 6 on a VAS scale of 0-10.
When asked how many days they slept well, the average answer was 6 days a week, in the other hand after questioning how many days they woke up at night the answer was 2 days a week. The presence of restless legs syndrome occurred in 46% (N=98) patients. (Figure 1Conclusions
This study shows the lack of information of uncomfortable symptoms in patients undergoing renal replacement therapy and differences between the therapies. Encouraging the research in this topic with the goal of improving those symptoms, knowing that the presence of them represent a risk for deterioration in quality of life and adherence to treatment.