Search

Background and Aims Elderly patients and comorbidity present more frequently deterioration of their cognitive and / or functional capacity, and consequently worse quality of life related to health and the need for help to perform their basic activities. It has been described in the literature that peritoneal dialysis (PD) is a protective factor in the patient's survival against hemodialysis (HD). Quality of life is an important parameter in patients undergoing renal replacement therapy, which influences the choice of dialysis modality. We analyzed and compared the degree of functional dependence of patients on PD versus HD. Method Descriptive and cross-sectional study. A total of 84 patients belonging to the General University Hospital of Ciudad Real were included. Demographic variables (age, sex), associated comorbidity, etiology of CKD, among others, were collected. To assess the degree of dependence, the Barthel index and Lawton and Brody were performed. Statistical analysis with SPSS 25.0. Categorical variables are expressed as percentages and have been compared using the Chi2 test. Quantitative variables are expressed as mean +/- standard deviation, and the T-student was used to compare them. Statistical significance for a value of p Results Of the 84 patients, 40.5% received PD and 59.5% HD. 60.7% were male and 39.3% female, with an average age of 60.90 years. 75% were hypertensive, 38.1% diabetic, 61.9% dyslipidemic, 27.4% obese and 61.9% had peripheral vasculopathy. The most frequent causes of CKD were diabetic nephropathy (22.6%), glomerular etiology (21.4%), unfiltered (20.2%) and nephroangiosclerosis (14.3%), among others. The degree of functional dependence according to the Barthel index was 63.1.9% for total independence, 29.8% mild dependence, 4.8% moderate dependence and 1.2% total dependence; and for the Lawton and Brody index, 42.9% total independence, 14.3% mild dependence, 27.4% moderate dependence, 11.9% severe dependence and 3.6% total dependence. When comparing the degree of functional dependence between both dialysis techniques, we observed that patients in PD had a lower degree of functional dependence compared to patients in HD, these differences being statistically significant (Lawton and Brody 73.5% in PD vs. 22% in HD, p Conclusion In our experience, the degree of functional dependence in patients in PD is lower compared to patients in HD with less comorbidity, being able to condition the choice of the technique of renal replacement therapy.