Impact of Pharmacist-Given Patient-Counseling on Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) of Haemodialysis Patients

Abstract

BACKGROUND End stage renal disease (ESRD) patients who are treated with haemodialysis experience many threats to their health-related quality of life (HRQOL), both from the large number of symptoms of disease itself and from the physical and mental burden of dialysis treatment. There are several scoring systems available to assess the quality of life of patients. Kidney disease quality of life (KDQOL-SFTM) scale is specifically designed for use in patients with kidney disease and who are on dialysis. Though, certain studies have utilised this scoring system, a pre-post counseling difference in quality of life was not measured. Hence, we assessed the impact of patient counseling on HRQOL of haemodialysis patients in a secondary care hospital using KDQOL-SFTM instrument. METHODS This is a prospective, longitudinal, pre-post interventional study. A total of 37 patients undergoing haemodialysis were identified and were randomly allocated into test and control groups. The HRQOL of each patient in both groups was measured at 1st week and 4th week using KDQOL-SFTM scale. The patients in the test group received patient counseling and additionally patient information leaflets were distributed after baseline quality of life (QOL) assessment. Paired t-test and unpaired t-tests were utilised to examine differences in QOL scores within and between the test and control groups. RESULTS Mean HRQOL scores were improved after patient counseling (P value = 0.0024) in the test group; difference in the QOL scores of test group compared to control group (P value = 0.0003) was found to be significant. CONCLUSIONS Hence, it was found that pharmacist given patient counselling considerably improves the HRQOL of haemodialysis patients. Bed side counselling to haemodialysis patients by clinical pharmacist should be made part of the patient care offered in dialysis units. KEY WORDS End Stage Renal Disease, Haemodialysis, Health-Related Quality of Life, HRQOL, Patient Counseling, Pharmacist, Quality of Life