Since December 2019, the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has attracted global attention (1, 2). In China and many other countries, governments have implemented several compulsory measures, such as quarantine, restriction of mass gatherings and events, business and school closures, and reduced frequency of transport, to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 (3, 4).

It is reported that chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients are more vulnerable to COVID-19 than the general population (5). COVID-19 infection could lead to high frequency of renal abnormalities, which not only included massive proteinuria and hematuria, but also elevated serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen (6). What is more, CKD is associated with an increased risk of pneumonia, and the pneumonia-related mortality rate in CKD patients seems to be 14–16 times higher than in the general population (7). During the lockdown period, owing to the lack of personal protective equipment and limited transport, COVID-19 seems to pose a threat to the health of CKD patients in terms of follow-up and acquiring drugs. They are more anxious about their illness and whether they could use vaccines against COVID-19. Due to these factors, CKD patients are more likely to gain negative emotions. A latest study demonstrated that hemodialysis patients had more severe trauma-related stress symptoms than peritoneal dialysis patients (8).

However, there were few studies focused on CKD patients who did not enter the maintenance dialysis stage. The impact of COVID-19 on different stages of CKD patients and the potential problems remained unknown. This study aimed at analyzing the change of illness, daily life, and psychological responses during the COVID-19 pandemic among CKD patients.

In this study, we found that COVID-19 had a greater impact on patients with CKD stages 3–5 than on those with CKD stages 1–2 in terms of illness, daily life, and psychological disorder. In addition, patients with CKD stages 3–5 seemed more anxious. The COVID-19 pandemic has a strong impact on the lives and work of people all over the world. The whole society is under great pressure for unemployment, infection, being separated from family, death, and so on (11–13). For CKD patients, they often need regular follow-up in the hospital. However, during the lockdown period, they cannot visit the hospital on time, which brings difficulties in better controlling their disease and the adjustment of treatment. The epidemic poses a huge challenge to patients with CKD because they require frequent care and support, and these needs are still required during the pandemic (5). Some researchers had realized the unique challenges that kidney disease patients experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. These patients may be at increased risk of infection or worse outcomes and were already facing obstacles in their routine medical care (14, 15).

In this study, we investigated the daily life, illness, and psychological responses of CKD patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that there were significant differences in online consultation, aggravation of symptoms, fear of being infected with COVID-19, decreased frequency of follow-up, anxiety about follow-up, the impact of COVID-19 on themselves by self-scoring, and the help from medical staff between patients with CKD stages 1–2 and stages 3–5. We were surprised to observe that the median scores of SAS were not high in the whole included patients. The median scores of patients with CKD stages 1–2 and CKD stages 3–5 were 48.58 and 51.19, which represented normal and mild anxiety, respectively. Overall, most CKD patients could calmly handle the situation. Patients with CKD stages 3–5 seemed to be more anxious during this period.

Several reasons might lead to these differences between the two groups. The condition of patients with CKD stages 1–2 was relatively stable with simpler drug treatments, fewer complications, and slower progression of disease. However, the condition of patients with CKD stages 3–5 was more serious, with complications in most cases, and that was why they needed to visit the hospital more often. Owing to the usual higher frequency of follow-up of the CKD stage 3–5 patients, their decreased frequency of follow-up would be more apparent during the lockdown period.

During the epidemic, hospitals opened a special COVID-19 telephone hotline and smartphone application for online consultations, through which medical staff offered suggestions and interventions out of the hospital (16). It could reduce crowd gathering in offline hospitals (17). Especially for those who had mild symptoms, online doctors could give professional advice on self-management and treatment (18). Many hospitals began to offer internet-based drug prescription and delivery service for patients with common and chronic diseases (16). However, the illness of patients with CKD stages 3–5 tended to be more severe and some drugs could not be obtained online; for example, erythropoietin and insulin must be transported in low temperature, which was difficult to carry out. CKD patients with anemia or diabetes may not have good access to the needed drugs, which proved harmful to their condition. Furthermore, some special examination items could only be performed in the central hospitals, which could not be solved by online consultation. Consequently, it could not take the place of offline treatment completely. Also, patients with CKD stages 1–2 had a higher education level, which may make them more accustomed to using telephones for the new type of treatment. These were reasons why patients with CKD stages 3–5 had a lower proportion of online consultation. Better drug delivery system for some special drugs and improvements in more convenient ways to online access could contribute to the popularity of online consultation. A future area community lab center would be beneficial to patients with chronic disease for blood or other examination during an epidemic.

Besides, because of the lack of enough protective equipment, transportation inconvenience, and fear of being infected in the hospital, which was a high-risk area full of sick patients (19), patients with CKD stages 3–5 could be more anxious about follow-up in the hospital. Additionally, due to the more severe illness of these patients, they could easily feel their symptoms getting worse.

SAS was a norm-referenced screener with adequate reliability and validity, which had been shown to discriminate anxiety from mood disorders (20). All the reasons mentioned above may contribute to the higher scores of SAS in patients with CKD stages 3–5. The results of multivariate analysis indicated that CKD stage was one of the independent risk factors of SAS. Despite the fact that the impact of COVID-19 on patients themselves and the demand for psychological help had no statistical difference between the two groups, these factors were all positively associated with SAS. Education level and frequency of outside activities were negatively associated with SAS, which showed that patients with a university degree or higher frequency of outside activities were less likely to be anxious. Patients with a higher education level may know more proper ways of self-protection, which is helpful in facing the epidemic more calmly and rationally. In addition, patients had a higher frequency of outside activities mainly because they need better work, which often made them more adaptable in the society coexisting with the epidemic.

Actually, in some previous studies, researchers had realized that psychiatric disorders were common among the public during the 2003 SARS and 2014 Ebola virus outbreaks or other epidemics (21, 22). In 2016, it was reported that during the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) pandemic, about 47.2% MERS patients had symptoms of anxiety and 52.8% had feelings of anger (23). Additionally, many studies concentrated on infected patients, the general population (24), frontline health and social care professionals (25), and students (26), and only few studies focused on patients with chronic disease. This study was the first to report on how CKD patients without dialysis reacted during the pandemic. To date, there are still many confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide. Our study might contribute to improving the management and treatment of CKD patients during the pandemic. Careful psychological assessment and sufficient mental support should be provided to more CKD patients, especially those with lower eGFR.

However, there were some limitations in our study. First, our data were collected in Sichuan province, which was not a high prevalence area. Second, there were no data about how CKD patients obtained drugs during the lockdown period. Third, some parts of the questionnaire were answered according to the patients' subjective perception, which may lack objectivity.

In conclusion, compared with patients with CKD stages 1–2, patients with CKD stages 3–5 were more affected in terms of illness, daily life, and psychological disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic. They seemed more anxious when confronted with such infectious diseases. More careful management of illness and mental support should be provided to CKD patients, especially those with lower eGFR.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethical Committee of West China Hospital of Sichuan University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

ZJ designed the study, collected data, performed statistical analyses, and wrote the manuscript. JL, LG, ZZ, DW, and LZ collected the data. JT collected the data and performed statistical analyses. WQ and YT designed the study and critically revised the work. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.