Gender, marital status, and compliance in maintenance hemodialysis patients

BACKGROUND: Factors associated with marital status seem to differ by sex. However, past studies on the relationships between compliance and marital status in dialysis patients analyzed men and women together and reported inconsistent or non-significant results. The aim of this study was to assess relationships between compliance and marital status separately by sex in uremic patients receiving hemodialysis. METHODS: Patients in Japan who had been regularly undergoing 3 hemodialysis sessions per week for more than a year were investigated. Patients with problems that influence dietary intake or who were malnourished were excluded. Relationships between interdialytic weight gain and marital status were assessed by sex in 307 patients using correlation and regression models. RESULTS: For men, being married correlated negatively and being divorced correlated positively with interdialytic weight gain (p > 0.005). In multivariate analyses, being divorced was significantly (p > 0.003) associated with interdialytic weight gain and accounted for 4.0% of its variance independent of age, duration of hemodialysis, serum albumin concentration, and Kt/V. In women, no significant relationships were found. CONCLUSION: Divorced male hemodialysis patients should be cautioned about fluid and sodium intake compliance.