Purpose: This present study aimed to determine risk factors and awareness levels in predialysis patients.
Materials and Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study performed in the nephrology clinic of a university hospital between 01.04.2017-01.07.2017. The population of the study consisted of 185 patients who were diagnosed with chronic kidney disease and admitted to the outpatient clinic between the dates mentioned, the sample consisted of 155 patients who had no communication problems and accepted to answer the questionnaire. Data were collected by a questionnaire consisting of 34 questions which were prepared by the researchers and questioned the sociodemographic and disease characteristics of the patients. Data was analyzed using percentiles, frequency, chi-square test. p <0.05 was considered significant.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 64.96±12.83, 56.8% were male, 64.5% were primary school graduates and 11.6% were smokers. The majority (38.7%) are overweight / obese and 40.0% are diagnosed with stage 2 renal failure. 50.3% of the cases were referred from other polyclinics and 15.5% of them stated that they experienced fatigue and pain as a complaint. It was found that 56.1% of the patients did not know the cause of their disease, most of them (92.9%) used their medicines regularly and 93.5% of them did not use the drug without prescription. 70.3% of the patients stated that they had information about their diet and 43.2% of them had less salt. The mean systolic blood pressure was 139.09 ± 25.61 and diastolic blood pressure was 82.06 ± 14.21. Patients with chronic kidney disease stage; the difference between sex, education level, body mass index and smoking status was statistically significant (p<0.05).
Conclusion: It was concluded that the male gender, another comorbid disease, low education level, overweight / obesity status constitute the majority in our study and the awareness of patients is low.