Assessment of the Changes in Health-related Quality of Life after Kidney Transplantation in a Cohort of 232 Thai Patients

Aim The aim of this study was to investigate QoL of these patients before and after KT and to determine relationships between basic factors of gender, age, educational background, marital status, income, and QoL of patients after undergoing KT. Methods A retrospective study to determine HQoL of 232 ESRD patients who received KT in a single center in Thailand. HQoL was determined by 3 methods: WHO questionnaires, EQ5D questionnaires, and visual analog scale (VAS) questionnaires. Other important demographic information including gender, age, education, marital status, and family income were recorded. Pre- and post-KT HQoL was scored and compared. The Pearson method was used to calculate correlation statistics. Results WHO QoL is significantly improved in all domains including physical health, psychological health, social health, and environmental health after KT (P <.001). EQ5D QoL is also significantly improved after KT for the categories of self-mobility, self-care, pain, distress, anxiety, and depression. The mean score of VAS before KT was 40.98 and rose to 83.10 after KT (P <.001). Gender and marital status were not significantly correlated with quality of life. The level of education and average income of the family are positively correlated with increased QoL after KT (P <.01 and P <.001). However, age is negatively correlated with increased QoL (P <.05). Conclusion Successful KT leads to a significant increase of HQoL as determined by 3 independent measurements. The improvement is shown by better physical health, psychosocial health, environmental health, and functional abilities of the transplant recipients. Our results confirm that KT should be the treatment of choice for patients with ESRD.