End-stage kidney disease patients exhibited slower responses to rapidly presented visual stimuli when compared with healthy controls.

Abstract

Objective: Using a go/no-go test, we showed that end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) patients have a slower average reaction time (RT) compared with their respective controls. This study aimed to investigate whether the RT of ESKD patients worsened throughout the test and whether RTs were influenced by target frequencies (TF) or the speed of stimulus presentation.

Method: A total of 110 ESKD patients and 109 age- and sex-matched controls were selected (M_age = 50.2 ± 12.07 years for patients and 47.8 ± 14.21 years for controls). Participants completed a go/no-go test, assessing attentional subdomains through four variables: omission errors (focus), commission errors (inhibition), RT (intrinsic alertness), and variability of RT (sustained attention). The test lasted approximately 15 min and was divided into three consecutive, equally spaced time sets (first, second, third). Each set was subdivided into two blocks: one with a high TF (80%) and the other with a low TF (20%). Each block was subdivided into three different interstimulus time intervals (low, medium, and high speeds). Both groups performed the test simultaneously at dialysis centers, with ESKD patients completing it 68 hr after their last dialysis session.

Results: ESKD patients consistently demonstrated slower RTs than controls throughout the 15-min task. The average difference in RT between the groups did not increase over time and was independent of TF. Notably, RT was significantly slower in ESKD patients only when stimuli were presented at the highest speed.

Conclusions: ESKD patients exhibited specifically impaired alertness when responding to visual stimuli presented at the highest speed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).