Kidney stone formers have lower health-related quality of life (HRQOL) than non-stone formers. The North American Stone Quality of Life Consortium is a multi-center, longitudinal prospective study of kidney stone patients' HRQOL using the Wisconsin Stone Quality of Life questionnaire, with data currently collected on 2052 patients from 11 centers. This study is a sub-analysis of cross-sectional data looking at the association between age, gender, and race on the HRQOL of stone formers.
Multivariable analyses of ordinal logistic regression analyses were used to determine the impact of age, gender, and race on HRQOL, adjusting for other baseline covariates. The proportional odds assumption of ordinal logistic regression was checked. Both total score and scores within 4 sub-domains - social functioning, emotional functioning, stone-related impact, and vitality - were included.
Mean total score for all patients was 70.9. On multivariable analysis, older patients had a significantly higher total score for HRQOL than younger patients (OR 1.25 for 10 years increase, p-value <0.0001). Male patients had higher HRQOL scores than females (OR 1.56, p = 0.0003), and non-Caucasian patients had a lower HRQOL than non-Latino Caucasian patients (OR 0.63, p = .0045).
Younger and female kidney stone patients have lower HRQOL than older and male patients. Non-Caucasian stone patients also have a lower HRQOL. The clinical impact of these findings might include future implications for patient counseling, including dietary and medical management of stone disease, and potential changes to the paradigm of the surgical management of stones.
The Journal of urology. 2019 Apr 26 [Epub ahead of print]
Karen L Stern, Tianming Gao, Jodi A Antonelli, Davis P Viprakasit, Timothy D Averch, Thomas Chi, Ben H Chew, Vincent G Bird, Vernon M Pais, Necole M Streeper, Roger L Sur, Stephen Y Nakada, Kristina L Penniston, Sri Sivalingam
Cleveland Clinic Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute , Cleveland , OH., Quantitative Health Sciences Department, Cleveland Clinic , Cleveland , OH., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center , Dallas , TX., University of North Carolina School of Medicine , Chapel Hill , NC., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine , Pittsburgh , PA., University of California San Francisco School of Medicine , San Francisco CA., University of British Columbia , Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada., University of Florida College of Medicine , Gainesville , FL., Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth , Hanover , NH., Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center , Hershey , PA., University of California San Diego School of Medicine , San Diego , CA., University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health , Madison , WI.