Abstract:
Background: Anaemia and Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) are linked to global health
challenges. Awareness of anaemia in CKD patients is essential to optimising patient care.
However, it remains unknown in selected CKD patients.
Objectives: To assess the prevalence and anaemia severity across the CKD stages among patients
attending the Nephrology and Medical clinics at Teaching Hospital, Jaffna
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using convenient sampling
technique. A total of 137 patients (18 years or more) diagnosed with CKD were recruited and
categorized into five CKD stages based on estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Patients on
dialysis, with kidney transplant or erythropoietin therapy were excluded. Serum creatinine and
blood haemoglobin concentrations were measured by Jaffe and cyanmethemoglobin methods,
respectively. Anaemia and its severity were defined according to the WHO criteria. Patients’ age
and gender were entered in to a data extraction sheet. Data were analysed using descriptive
statistics in SPSS software.
Results: In the selected population, 48.18% (n=66) were anaemic and equally distributed (n=33)
between males and females. The mean±SD age of anaemic patients was 51.24±14.59 years. The
highest proportion of anaemic patients (13.9%) was observed in stage 3b, followed by stage 4
(12.4%) and stage 2 (10.2%), showing statistical significance (p<0.001). Anaemia was more
frequent in females at early CKD stages, while in advanced stages, anaemia was predominantly
observed in males. Mild anaemics (63.6%) were highest, followed by moderate (33.3%) and
severe (3%) anaemics. Mild anaemia was predominated in males (54.8%), whereas moderate
anaemia was more prevalent in females (54.5%). Only females had severe anaemia. Mild anaemia
was the most frequent form observed across all CKD stages. Moderate anaemia (22.7%) was
distributed evenly between patients in stages 2 and 3b. Severe anaemia was observed only in the
patients at stage 4. However, the severity of anaemia was not significantly associated with CKD
stages.
Conclusions: Anaemia was prevalent in nearly half of the CKD patients, with mild anaemia being
the most common across all stages and severe anaemia observed only in advanced stages.
Although anaemia prevalence increased significantly with CKD progression, no significant
association was found between anaemia severity and CKD stages in selected CKD patients.
