Improving self-management in chronic kidney disease: a pilot study

The burden of diabetic kidney disease continues to escalate at significant cost to the patient and health care system. Health literacy and self-management are critical to improving the outcomes of chronic conditions such as chronic kidney disease (CKD).This paper describes a community-based CKD pilot study implemented in New Zealand (NZ) based on a self-management and educational model of care.The aim of the pilot study was to implement a collaborative, community-based intervention using specialist nephrology nursing support in a primary care setting, targeting people at increased risk of developing end-stage kidney disease. We have previously reported this pilot study to be effective in clinical terms by reducing proteinuria, improving blood pressure control, and reducing five-year absolute cardiovascular risk and to improve some patient-centred outcomes, (patients' knowledge of their health condition and medications/treatments, medication compliance, and adherence to a healthy lifestyle). In this article, we report the effect of the pilot on a more extensive range of self-management and patient-centred outcomes, such as patient perceptions around shared decision making, care that is appropriate to their cultural beliefs and values, their propensity to monitor and act upon medical early warning signs, and the impact of their condition upon daily physical activities, feelings, and social and family life. All but two of the domains showed significant improvement during this study, indicating the potential benefits of self-management models of care for patient-centred outcomes in CKD patients.