Background Patient-reported humanistic outcomes like patient satisfaction are becoming more important in clinical practice, but their use has limitations. Improvements are needed to better demonstrate how patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes are associated. The objective of the study was to observe the correlation between patient’s hemoglobin and patient satisfaction. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at a University Hospital hemodialysis unit among end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients on maintenance hemodialysis in February and March, 2021. During this time period patient satisfaction was measured using an instrument from the Choices for Healthy Outcomes in Caring for End-Stage Renal Disease (CHOICE) study. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to find a correlation between patient satisfaction domains and hemoglobin. P value was set at 0.05, and SPSS version 26 was used for the analysis. Results Out of 41 patients studied, their satisfaction on care by interprofessional staff was 77.3%, information received was 68.8%, and effectiveness of care was 71.3% for “very good” and “excellent” responses combined. Out of 40 patients, hemoglobin levels were lower in 17 (42.5%) and higher in seven (17.5%) patients than the optimal range of 10 - 12 g/dL. Spearman’s correlation coefficients were not statistically significant for anemia and any patient satisfaction domain (r s : 0.244, 0.101, 0.048, respectively for the three domains). Spearman’s correlation coefficients were high or moderate between patient satisfaction domains; interprofessional staff with information (r s : 0.745, P value < 0.001) and interprofessional staff with the effectiveness of care (r s : 0.619, P value < 0.001). Information domain had a moderate correlation with the effectiveness of care (r s : 0.527, P value < 0.001). Conclusions No correlation was observed between patient satisfaction with hemoglobin. Although patient satisfaction among hemodialysis patients was mostly “very good” or “excellent”, nearly half of the patients were anemic, and some had higher hemoglobin than the target. Since both of these groups have higher cardiovascular risk this provides an opportunity for the development of patient satisfaction tools with greater sensitivity to awareness of patients’ cardiovascular risk.

Background: End-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients undergoing hemodialysis suffer from multiple comorbidities, including cardiovascular disorders. Calcium phosphate product is one of the stand-alone cardiovascular risk markers. The relationship between calcium phosphate product-based cardiovascular risk and HRQOL needs to be further studied. Methods: This project was a cross-sectional survey using the Kidney Disease Quality of Life (KDQOL-36) of patient health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Calcium phosphate product was calculated from the information in the medical records. The study was conducted at the hemodialysis ward of the hospital affiliated with the Thumbay University. Spearman’s correlation coefficient (rs) was used to explore an association (correlation) between HRQOL domains and categorized calcium phosphate products. In this study, the significance level was set at P = 0.05, and SPSS software version 26 was used to analyze the data. Results: The mean score (58%) of the Short Form (SF)-12 Physical composite was lower than the mean score of mental composite (70%). Among kidney-specific domains, the highest HRQOL score was associated with the symptom/problem list (71%), followed by effects on kidney disease (63%) and the burden of kidney disease (40%), respectively. There was a non-strong negative correlation between the ‘burden of kidney disease’ and corrected calcium phosphate product (rs -0.439, P-value 0.032) and between ‘symptom/ problem list’ and corrected calcium phosphate product (rs -0.431, P-value 0.035), and the other KDQOL domains revealed insignificant relationship with calcium phosphate product. Conclusions: ESKD affects HRQOL in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis. Calcium phosphate product also needs to be decreased by < 55 mg/dL in the concerned patients. Calcium phosphate product and HRQOL were not correlated in this group of patients. The HRQOL measures need to be revised to detect cardiovascular risk.