Association of quality of life, anxiety, and depression with restless leg syndrome in the hemodialysis patients

Prevalence of restless legs syndrome in maintenance hemodialysis patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Restless legs syndrome is associated with quality of life and risk of death in maintenance hemodialysis patients. Although relevant meta-analyses have been conducted, epidemiological studies of restless legs syndrome have increased in recent years.

OBJECTIVE

Our aim was to systematically assess the prevalence of restless legs syndrome in maintenance hemodialysis patients and to evaluate the effect of different geographic regions, genders, study designs, and years of publication on the prevalence of restless legs syndrome.

METHODS

PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, Wanfang Database, Weipu, and Chinese Biomedical Database were searched before March 16, 2023 for the published literature. Two investigators independently performed literature screening, data extraction for eligible studies, and risk of bias assessment. A random-effects model using the stata 15.0 software was used to assess the pooled prevalence of restless legs syndrome.

RESULTS

Fifty-seven articles were included in this meta-analysis, and the pooled prevalence of restless legs syndrome in 12,573 maintenance hemodialysis patients was 24.0 % (95 % CI: 21.0%-26.0 %). Maintenance hemodialysis patients from the Americas region and females had severe symptoms of restless legs syndrome, and the prevalence of restless legs syndrome increased from year to year. The prevalence of restless legs syndrome was higher in maintenance hemodialysis patients in cross-sectional studies and cohort studies compared to case-control studies.

CONCLUSIONS

Maintenance hemodialysis patients have a significantly higher prevalence of restless legs syndrome. These findings may provide some reference value for hospital nursing staff to focus on the management and treatment of restless legs syndrome in maintenance hemodialysis patients.

Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B Virus and Hepatitis C Virus in Patients Undergoing Maintenance Hemodialysis

Background

Underdeveloped countries suffer a huge burden of infectious diseases, among which hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are of major concern. Our study sought to determine the seroconversion rate for HBV via hepatitis B antigen (HBsAg) and HCV via anti-hepatitis C virus antibodies (anti-HCV) among patients on maintenance hemodialysis in the dialysis unit of a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan.

Methodology

This study was carried out from October 2020 to January 2022 at the hemodialysis unit and the urology department of a tertiary care hospital in Multan. A total of 172 patients of both genders were screened for HBV and HCV seropositivity. Data analysis was done through IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0 (Released 2017; IBM Corp., Armonk, New York, United States). Conclusions were drawn accordingly.

Results

At the one-year follow-up, screening revealed that 20 (11.7%) patients were positive for HBsAg and 39 (23%) were positive for anti-HCV. Five patients had dual seropositivity for HBsAg and anti-HCV, while three were positive for both HBsAg and anti-HDV. Four out of 20 patients who screened positive for HBsAg and 11 out of 39 patients screened for anti-HCV had a history of one more blood transfusion. Though the correlation between the duration of hemodialysis and viral markers was significant (p<0.05) for the patients screened positive for anti-HCV, a similar correlation was not observed in the patients with seropositivity for HBsAg.

Conclusion

Our study concludes that seroconversion is statistically significant for HCV infection compared to HBV infection. Tight adherence to standard preventive measures to minimize the transmission of these pathogens can lead to a decline in the incidence of these infections. Screening should be done widely to control and optimally manage these infections.