CKD Risk Influenced by Quality of Care in Diabetes Patients

Low quality of care is associated with an increased risk for the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD) among patients with type 2 diabetes, a new study showed.

For their study, the researchers assessed 4754 patients with type 2 diabetes who had available data in Taiwan’s Longitudinal Cohort of Diabetes Patient Database. Patients were identified from 1999 to 2003 and followed until 2011.
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Quality of care scores from 0 to 8 were calculated for each patient based on various process indicators, intermediate outcome indicators, and comorbidity of hypertension. The association between the score and CKD incidence was examined using Cox regression models.

A total of 1407 patients developed CKD over the course of follow-up. Patients with quality-of-care scores of at least 5 (hazard ratio [HR] 0.31) had a 69% lower risk of developing CKD compared with those with scores of 2 or less.

Furthermore, those with scores between 3 and 4 (HR 0.67) had a 33% lower risk of CKD onset compared with those who scored 2 or less.

“Good quality of care can reduce the risk of CKD in patients with type 2 diabetes,” the researchers concluded. “The score developed in this study had a significant association with the risk of CKD and thus can be applied to guide the care for these patients.”

—Christina Vogt

Reference:

Li PI, Wang JN, Guo HR. Long-term quality-of-care score predicts incident chronic kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetes [Published online February 15, 2018]. Nephrol Dial Transplantation. https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfx375.