Risk factors of hospitalization among chronic kidney disease patients in tertiary care hospitals - A single-center experience

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects health and life of patients. They confront anemia, hypertension, infections and cardiovascular disease. Due to these health issues, they are at risk of repeated hospitalizations. The risk factors which propel them to hospitalize are important to know, and by controlling these factors, we can impede preventable hospitalization. This case–control study included 1050 adult CKD patients, conducted in two tertiary care hospitals of Karachi. Variables included were age, gender, ethnicity, area of residence, marital status, education smoking status, comorbids, blood pressure, type of angioaccess, hemodialysis (HD) status, stage of CKD, activity level, and laboratory parameters. Two predicted models using multivariable logistic regression analysis were established to evaluate the effect of factors leading toward hospitalization. Patients with ischemic heart disease had 3.56 [95% confidence interval (CI): 2.14–5.9] times higher rate of admission. The nonactive and moderately active patients were admitted 3.8 and 2.26 times more respectively as compared to the active patients (P <0.001). Patients with HD venous catheter were admitted 33.43 (95% CI: 12.45–89.81) times more than patients without any angioaccess. All laboratory parameters had highly significant effect on admission (P <0.001), odds ratio for low albumin, low hemoglobin, and high total leukocyte count were 6.87(95% CI: 4.45–10.6), 4.2 (95% CI: 2.73–6.57) and 7.9 (95% CI: 4.93–12.66) respectively. In conclusion, cardiovascular disease was observed as the most important risk factor of hospitalization for CKD patients. The other plausible risk factors were late referral to nephrologist, low activity level anemia, and hypoalbuminemia.