Cognitive Impairment and Its Associated Factors in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: hemodialysis is a treatment for end-stage renal disease (esrd) that is an underlying factor of cognitive impairment in patients. objectives: this study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence of cognitive impairment and its associated factors in patients undergoing hemodialysis using montreal cognitive assessment (moca). materials and methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out in 2016 in the dialysis unit of an academic hospital in the north of iran. a total of two hundreds and twenty-four patients with chronic renal failure and esrd presenting to for hemodialysis were included. all the patients were evaluated by the moca and the cut-off point was set at ≤25 for confirming cognitive impairment. the data obtained were analyzed in spss-18 using the chi-square test, mann-whitney’s u-test, fisher’s exact test, the independent t-test and the binomial logistic regression. results: from the total of 224 patients examined, 93 (41.52%) had developed cognitive impairment. the variables of age, stroke, education and diabetes were entered into the logistic regression model to analyze the associated risk factors, but only age and a history of stroke showed a significant relationship with this impairment; that is, the possibility of cognitive impairment increases with increasing age and a history of stroke can increase its risk six-fold. conclusion: cognitive impairment was a relatively frequent complication of hemodialysis in this study which was performed in the north of iran. aging and a history of stroke are risk factors of cognitive impairment in patients with chronic kidney failure undergoing hemodialysis treatment.