Abstract
Objective: To find socio-economic problems faced
by patients with chronic kidney diseases (CKD) during
their disease epoch in state based medical situates of
Multan, Pakistan.
Methodology: This cross sectional study was carried
out at Kidney Center and Nishtar hospital, Multan,
Pakistan from 16th February, 2020 to 17th June, 2020.
We included 250 registered CKD patients selected
through simple random sampling technique. Chisquare and binary logistic regression analysis were
applied for analyzing the data in SPSS version-21.
Results: Out of 250 respondents, 182 (72.8%) and
133 (53.2%) faced harsh attitudes and behaviors of
their family members, respectively. 155 (62.0%)
patients reported that they were restricted from social
life and feel social isolation (228, 91.2%). An
overwhelming majority i.e. n = 241 (96.4%)
respondents illustrated that they became economic
burden on their families due to high expanses of their
treatment. Additionally, 230 (92.0%) patients reported
that they were unable to afford the treatment expenses
of their disease (such as kidney transplant and
minor/major surgeries).
Conclusion: CKD patients faced many socioeconomic problems during their disease epoch such
aschanges in attitudes and behaviors of family
members, social isolation, decreasing the quality of
social life and health status, non-participation in
household economy as well as non-affordance of
medication and treatment.
Keywords: Chronic kidney disease, kidney failure,
social isolation.
