Objective To explore the trajectory of social frailty in maintenance hemodialysis patients and analyze its influencing factors.

Methods A total of 210 maintenance hemodialysis patients diagnosed with end-stage renal disease were selected as the study objects. The patients were investigated using the general data questionnaire, Chinese version of Social frailty Index Scale and CD-RISC in the first dialysis and at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months of dialysis. The latent category growth model and single factor analysis were used for data processing.

Results The social frailty trajectory of maintenance hemodialysis patients was identified into three potential categories, and the average probability of each category belonging to each potential category was 0.946, 0.910, 0.948, respectively. The three categories were high level aggravating group (30.1%), medium level improvement group (51.9%) and low level stabilization group (18.0%). There were statistically significant differences in self-rated personality types among different trajectory categories, including introversion and intermediate type, introversion and extroversion, and intermediate type and extroversion (P ＜ 0.05 ~ P ＜ 0.01).

Conclusions The social frailty of maintenance hemodialysis patients within 12 months from the first dialysis to regular dialysis presents three different trajectories, and the trajectories of social frailty of patients are different. Clinical staff should pay close attention to high level aggravating dialysis patients, timely identify high-risk patients with social faltering, in order to reduce the impact of social faltering, and provide active and targeted protective care.