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©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Restless legs syndrome is contributing to fatigue and low quality of life levels in hemodialysis patients
Christoforos D Giannaki, Michael Hadjigavriel, Akis Lazarou, Aristos Michael, Loukas Damianou, Efthimios Atmatzidis, Ioannis Stefanidis, Georgios M Hadjigeorgiou, Giorgos K Sakkas, Marios Pantzaris
Christoforos D Giannaki, Department of Life and Health Sciences, University of Nicosia, Nicosia CY 1700, Cyprus
Christoforos D Giannaki, Marios Pantzaris, the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, Nicosia CY 1683, Cyprus
Michael Hadjigavriel, Hemodialysis Unit, Larnaca General Hospital, Larnaca CY 6021, Cyprus
Akis Lazarou, Aristos Michael, Loukas Damianou, Efthimios Atmatzidis, Hemodialysis Unit, Limassol General Hospital, Limassol CY 3304, Cyprus
Ioannis Stefanidis, Georgios M Hadjigeorgiou, School of Medicine, University of Thessaly, 41110 Larisa, Greece
Giorgos K Sakkas, Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of St Mark and St John, Plymouth PL6 8BH, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Giannaki CD substantial contributions to conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data; drafting the article, making critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript; and final approval of the version of the article to be published; Lazarou A, Atmatzidis E, Stefanidis I, Hadjigeorgiou GM and Sakkas GK substantial contributions to conception and design of the study, making critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript; final approval of the version of the article to be published; Hadjigavriel M, Michael A, Damianou L and Pantzaris M substantial contributions to conception and design of the study, acquisition of data; making critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript; final approval of the version of the article to be published.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the National Bioethics Committee of Cyprus (no. EEΒΚ ΕΠ/2012.01.74).
Informed consent statement: All study participants providec informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Data sharing statement: No additinal data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Christoforos D Giannaki, PhD, Department of Life and Health Sciences, University of Nicosia, 46 Makedonitisas Avenue, Nicosia CY 1700, Cyprus.
giannaki.c@unic.ac.cy
Telephone: +357-22-842325 Fax: +357-22-842399
Received: January 28, 2017
Peer-review started: February 12, 2017
First decision: April 18, 2017
Revised: June 20, 2017
Accepted: July 7, 2017
Article in press: July 9, 2017
Published online: September 6, 2017
Processing time: 215 Days and 5.6 Hours
AIM
To examine whether hemodialysis (HD) patients with restless legs syndrome (RLS) are subjects of greater fatigue and impaired quality of life (QoL) compared to HD patients without RLS.
METHODS
Eighty five stable HD patients participated in this study. According to their RLS status, the patients were divided into the RLS group (n = 23) and the non-RLS group (n = 62). QoL, fatigue, sleep quality, daily sleepiness and depression symptoms were assessed by using various questionnaires. Finally, biochemical parameters including iron, ferritin, hemoglobin, hematocrit and parathormone were assessed.
RESULTS
The HD patients with RLS scored worse in all the questionnaires used in the study (P < 0.05). The patients with RLS were more likely to receive the HD therapy on the morning shift, whilst 43.5% of the RLS patients reported to experience the RLS symptoms also during HD. The severity of RLS was correlated with fatigue, depression score and sleep quality (P < 0.05).
CONCLUSION
HD patients with RLS are subject to lower QoL related parameters and greater fatigue compared to HD patients without RLS. RLS should be successfully managed in order to improve the QoL of the sufferers.
Core tip: Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is very common in patients receiving hemodialysis therapy. It seems that the hemodialysis patients who suffer also from RLS are subject of greater fatigue levels and they are experience even more impaired quality of life, sleep quality, daily sleepiness and depression symptoms compared to their free RLS counterparts.
