Associations and Interactions of Age, Sex, and Duration of Hemodialysis with Compliance in Uremic Patients

Purpose. The aim of this study was to assess the relationships of compliance with age, sex, and duration of hemodialysis (HD) simultaneously in a large population of uremic patients on HD.Methods. Uremic patients (n = 484) who were regularly undergoing 3 HD sessions/week in Japan were investigated with regard to age, sex, duration of HD, and compliance measures (i.e., blood urea nitrogen [BUN], serum potassium [SK], and serum phosphorus levels [SPO4] levels and interdialytic weight gain [IDWG]). Associations and interactions among them were assessed by correlations and hierarchical multiple regression analyses.Results. Older age was significantly associated with low levels of BUN, SPO4, and IDWG (p<0.05), but not with SK levels. Longer duration of HD was significantly associated with high levels of SK, SPO4, and IDWG (p<0.05), but not with BUN levels. The regression lines illustrating significant (p<0.05) interactions predict that in men, the longer the duration of HD, the higher the levels of BUN and SK, and the higher the IDWG; this was not the case in women.Conclusions. In uremic patients on HD, compliance was likely to be different based on the patient's sex and duration of HD.