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Health promoting behaviors, quality of life, and hospital resource utilization of patients receiving kidney transplants.

Houle N, Bohannon RW, Frigon L, Maljanian R, Nieszczezewski J.
Hartford Hospital, Hartford, CT, USA.

Despite the value of kidney transplantation for patients with renal failure, transplantation is sometimes accompanied by untoward consequences and considerable resource utilization. The identification of modifiable factors contributing to resource utilization is, therefore, important. This exploratory study of kidney transplant patients had two purposes: (a) to describe health-promoting behaviors and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) pretransplant and hospital resource utilization posttransplant and (b) to investigate relationships between these and other variables. Subjects were 44 patients who (before transplantation) completed the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP) to quantify health-promoting behavior and the Medical Outcome Study Short Form (SF)-36 to measure HRQOL. Hospital resource utilization was characterized using transplant length of stay and charges and posttransplant emergency department visits, readmissions, and charges. The HPLP scores of the subjects were similar to those reported for middle-aged adults and patients with other diseases. The SF-36 subscale and summary scores were lower than those reported for the general population. Hospital resource utilization varied widely. Significant correlations were found between 52.9% of the HPLP and SF-36 scores. However, no HPLP score correlated significantly with any utilization measure. Of the SF-36 measures, only vitality correlated significantly with most utilization measures (greater vitality was associated with less posttransplant utilization). While many aspects of health-promoting behavior and HRQOL are related before transplant, neither HPLP, SF-36, nor any other measured variable strongly and consistently predicted hospital resource utilization.

PMID: 11887488 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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