Comparison of objective and subjective executive functions of chronic kidney dialysis patients and normal people

Chronic kidney disease is one of the widespread public health problems. This disease is associated with extensive cognitive deficits, among which visual attention, psychomotor speed and executive function can be mentioned. In most of the researches conducted in this field, the combined view in measuring executive functions and evaluating both types of objective and subjective executive functions has not been used, and this has hindered the acquisition of integrated knowledge in this field.

The aim of the present study was to compare objective and subjective executive functions between chronic kidney dialysis patients and normal people.

The design of present study is causal comparative type (ex post facto) design and the population of the present study includes all chronic kidney dialysis patients who went to Labbafinezhad Hospital and Clinic in Tehran for treatment in 1401 and 1402. Gpower software was used to determine the sample size, and 39 people were considered for each group, and these people were sampled in a purposeful manner and completed the research tool, which included the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test (Cambridge Cognition, 2012) and the deficits in executive functioning scale (Barkley, 2012), and the research data was statistically analyzed by Multivariate analysis of variance using SPSS 21 software.

The results of multivariate analysis of variance showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups of chronic kidney dialysis patients and normal patients in terms of the objective executive functions of visual-spatial span, the number of spatial working memory errors, problems solved with minimum movement and average movements in hard problems. Also, there was a significant difference between the two groups in terms of subjective executive functions of self-organization/problem solving and self-control/inhibition (p<0.05).

According to the results of present study, it is suggested to pay special attention to the role of objective executive functions and some subjective executive function in the early identification of structural and functional brain damage in chronic kidney dialysis patients.