Effect of Patient Counseling on Health Related Quality of Life among End Stage Renal Disease Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis

Quality of life of patient is being potentially affected at End stage renal disease (ESRD). Patient counseling will be an effective way to improve the multi-dimensional concept, health related quality of life (HRQOL) of hemodialysis patients by increasing the know1edge and awareness about the disease and its management. The objective of the present study was to assess the consequence of patient counseling on Health Related Quality Of Life among hemodialysis patients with End Stage Renal Disease. The study was conducted in the nephrology department of KIMS ALSHIFA hospital, a 750 bedded multispecialty tertiary level referral hospital situated in Perintalmanna, Malappuram district of Kerala.This was a prospective pre-post intervention study carried out over a period of six months. 50 hemodialysis patients meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria were provided with patient information leafles and counseling at regular intervals. KDQOL SF TM questionnaire was given to patients before and after counseling to evaluate the impact of patient counseling and to assess their HRQOL. Statistically significant improvement was seen in all three QOLcomponents after patient counselling at 5% level of significance. The increase in QOL scores was highly significant in case of physical and kidney disease components (P value <0.001). Pharmacist counseling was found to be very effective and there was improvement in all the three components of HRQOL after counseling. The study suggests that the counseling by a clinical pharmacist at regular intervals can improve the HRQOL.