Prevalence and factors associated with late referral to nephrologist in chronic kidney disease patients

Abstract

This cross-sectional study was conducted to identify the prevalence of late referral to nephrologist and the characteristics factors related to timing of referral of among the chronic kidney patients. These patients were on initiation of hemodialysis between 1st January 2008-31st December 2008 (96 cases).The collecting form was used for collecting the data. The statistics for analyze all data were frequency and chi-square test. The prevalence of late referral to nephrologist in this study is 52.1%. Most of them were referred in period of 1-6 month before having hemodialysis. The majority of respondents in this study were more than 60 years old 43.8%. 51% of respondents were female. Two-thirds were married. 44.8% had below high school education level. Almost 44.8 received government reimbursement. Factors effecting late referral are marital status (p-value = 0.043), perceive of hemodialysis (p-value = 0.003), fear of hemodialysis (pvalue = 0.014) and the distance to access the service (p-value = 0.014). Promoting education, awareness and information about hemodialysis will decrease late referral problems significantly. Moreover health care providers should be able to provide answers, proper administrative issues and appropriate referrals to patients afflicted with renal disease, guiding them to seek the best renal care available.