Mental health at the third month of haemodialysis as a predictor of short-term survival.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the survival of patients initiating haemodialysis (HD), and to analyse whether low health-related quality of life (HRQoL) levels are predictors of mortality in the short-term, controlling certain variables that had been shown in other studies to have a bearing on survival, and using scores, standardized for age and sex, of the HRQoL measurement tool employed. METHODS: This is a multicentric prospective study of all patients on HD in all the dialysis units in Asturias, a region with a little over one million inhabitants, from 1 January 2001 to 30 September 2002. A total of 199 patients initiated HD in our region and survived the first 3 months. Of these, 137 patients who remained on HD for at least 3 months had complete responses on HRQoL measures. RESULTS: It was observed that adjusted relative risk (RR) of death increased by 5% for each year of age increase (RR=1.05, 95% CI 1.01-1.09: P=0.006); in the same way, for each increase in the Mental Component Summary (MCS) score, the adjusted RR of death diminished by 4% (RR=0.96, 95% CI 0.94-0.99; P=0.006). CONCLUSION: Mental health has been shown to be a factor independently associated with mortality; as the MCS score worsens the adjusted RR of death of a patient on HD increases.