Cross-sectional comparison of quality of life and illness intrusiveness in patients who are treated with nocturnal home hemodialysis versus peritoneal dialysis.

Objective: Nocturnal home hemodialysis provides excellent biochemical and metabolic control of uremia; however, extensive training is necessary and technical barriers exist for intensive home hemodialysis compared with the relative simplicity of peritoneal dialysis. It was hypothesized that nocturnal home hemodialysis is associated with improved quality of life but higher illness intrusiveness compared with peritoneal dialysis.

Methods: All home dialysis patients at the University Health Network were approached to complete the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form, Beck Depression Inventory, and Illness Intrusiveness Survey during February to June 2006.

Results: Sixty-nine percent of all eligible patients completed the survey. Of the three domains derived from the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form, there was no difference in the kidney disease component summary, physical component summary, and the mental component summary between the two groups. There was a trend toward better sexual function in the nocturnal home hemodialysis group; however, nocturnal home hemodialysis patients experienced less social support than the peritoneal dialysis group. There was no difference between the nocturnal home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis patients with respect to the Beck Depression Index. Total illness intrusiveness score was similar between the nocturnal home hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis patients.

Conclusions: This study suggests that nocturnal home hemodialysis is not perceived as a more intrusive treatment and demonstrates that patients who are on peritoneal dialysis have similar perceived symptomatic control of their kidney disease.