Associated Factors With Uremic Pruritus in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients: A Single-Center Observational Study

Background and objectives Uremic pruritus is a recurrent and delicate manifestation in patients suffering from end-stage renal disease. It is a consequence of multiple factors, primarily comprising of metabolic factors and complement activation along with interleukins. The objective of our study was to find out the associated factors of uremic pruritus in chronic hemodialysis patients. The secondary aim was to obtain cut-off values of all the markers predicting pruritus. Materials and methods A cross-sectional observational study was conducted in the nephrology department of a tertiary care hospital including 135 patients. The current occurrence of pruritus was diagnosed on the basis of a validated and reliable scale of pruritus among chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients in the local language. Multivariate logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic analysis were conducted to decipher the required objectives. Results Study participants had a mean age of 56.29 ± 10.51 years with 56.3% males and 43.7% females. Hypertension was frequent comorbidity (75.6%) followed by diabetes (51.9%). Mean body mass index (BMI), duration of CKD diagnosis, and hemodialysis onset were 26.55 ± 5.37 kg/m(2), 6.58 ± 3.65 years, and 3.32 ± 2.09 years respectively. Pruritus was reported in 37.0% of the study participants. On multivariate logistic regression, presence of skin allergy (aOR: 8.100 [2.926-22.420], p<0.001), phosphate >4.5 mg/dL (aOR: 3.889 [1.118-15.532], p=0.033), female gender (aOR: 3.592 [1.337-9.655], p=0.011), albumin <3.5 g/dL (aOR: 2.987 [1.156-7.716], p=0.024) and potassium >5.1 mEq/L (aOR: 2.934 [1.030-8.355], p=0.044) were found significantly associated with pruritus. Conclusion Many factors were linked to pruritus in hemodialysis patients in the current study. The current study also significantly correlated certain factors with pruritus independently.