Is Nutrition Specific Quality of Life Associated With Nutritional Status?

Objective: The study purpose was to explore the relationship between nutritional status, as measured by Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), and Health Related Quality of Life measured using the Nutrition Specific Quality of Life (NS-QoL), tool among participants on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD). The study aim was to determine if NS-QoL may be an adjuvant tool for detecting changes in nutritional status among patients on MHD. Design, Setting, and Subjects: This is a cross-sectional, secondary analysis of data from a multi-center study. Participants were adult (>18) men and women on MHD (n = 145) recruited from 3 institutions in the Northeastern United States. Methods: Statistical tests were conducted to determine the relationship between key demographic characteristics (age, sex, dialysis vintage, gender, and ethnicity) and SGA and NS-QoL. Spearman's correlation examined the relationship between the independent variable, SGA and the dependent variable, NS-QoL. A univariate general linear model was conducted to adjust for confounding variables. Main Outcome Measure: The relationship between overall SGA score and composite NS-QoL score. Results: The sample consisted of 85 men (58.6%), with a mean age of 55.3 ± 11.9 years, who were largely African–American (84.1%) and non-Hispanic (77.2%). Mean SGA score was 5.5 ± 1.0, and the mean NS-QoL composite score was 9.51 ± 3.77. No key demographic characteristics had a statistically significant relationship with SGA, whereas sex (P <.001) and race (P =.015) both had statistically significant relationships with NSQoL. After adjusting for the variables of race and sex, NS-QoL score was positively correlated with SGA composite score (P =.042); as NS-QoL score increased so did the SGA score. Conclusion: The present study found a positive linear correlation between NS-QoL composite score and SGA, as well as 5 SGA subcomponent scores and NS-QoL. These findings indicate that NS-QoL can complement the SGA to provide information about a patient's nutritional status.