Abstract
Background: Patients with kidney failure treated with dialysis or kidney transplantation experience difficulties maintaining employment due to the condition itself as well as the treatment. We aimed to establish the rate of employment before and after initiation of dialysis and after kidney transplantation and to identify predictors of employment during dialysis and post-transplant.Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis was carried out according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis, PRISMA, for studies that included employment rate in adults receiving dialysis or a kidney transplant. The literature search included cross sectional or cohort studies published in English in the period from January 1966 to August 2020 in the databases PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library. Data of employment rate, study population, age, gender, educational level, dialysis duration, kidney donor, ethnicity, dialysis modality, waiting time for transplantation, diabetes, and depression were extracted. Quality assessment was performed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Meta-analysis for predictors for employment and odds ratio; confidence intervals; and test for heterogeneity were calculated using Chi-squared statistics and I2. PROSPERO registration number: CRD42020188853.Results. 33 studies with 162,059 participants during dialysis and 31 studies with 137,742 participants receiving kidney transplantation. Dialysis patients were on average 52.6 years old (range 16-79), 60.3% males and kidney transplant patients 46.7 years old (range 18-78), 59.8% males. The employment rate (weighted mean) for dialysis patients was 26.3% (range 10.5-59.7%); pre-transplant 36.9% (range 25-86%), and post-transplant 38.2% (range 14.2-85%). Predictors for employment during dialysis and post-transplant were male, non-diabetic, peritoneal dialysis, and higher educational level, and post-transplant: pre-transplant employment, younger age, transplantation with a living donor kidney, and without depression.Conclusions: Patients with kidney failure had a low employment rate during dialysis, pre- and post-transplant. Kidney failure patients should be supported through a combination of clinical and social measures to ensure they remain in work.
Effects of CD20+ B-cell infiltration into allografts on kidney transplantation outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis