Pediatric end stage renal disease health-related quality of life differs by modality: a PedsQL ESRD analysis

We previously validated the 34-item PedsQL 3.0 End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Module designed to measure pediatric ESRD-specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in children and adolescents receiving maintenance dialysis or with a renal transplant. The study reported here was undertaken to assess for potential HRQOL differences between ESRD modality in children with ESRD and their parents using the PedsQL 3.0 ESRD Module. Parents of patients with a renal transplant reported a significantly higher HRQOL for their children than parents of pediatric patients receiving dialysis on all ESRD Module Scales except the Perceived Physical Appearance Scale, with the majority of the effect sizes in the medium range. Pediatric renal transplant patients self-reported comparable HRQOL to pediatric patients receiving dialysis across the ESRD Module Scales, with the exception of the Family and Peer Interaction Scale, in which pediatric renal transplant patients self-reported significantly higher HRQOL than pediatric patients receiving dialysis. Our cross-sectional data suggest that parents of children with ESRD observe a positive impact from renal transplantation on the majority of HRQOL domains compared to dialysis, whereas children self-report generally non-significant small effect size differences in favor of renal transplantation. These findings suggest that the PedsQL ESRD 3.0 Module may be used to identify ESRD- and modality-specific challenges that impact pediatric patient HRQOL.