Effect of educational intervention on promoting self-care in hemodialysis patients: Applying the self-efficacy theory

BACKGROUND: Hemodialysis patients experience many issues in self-care behavior. Patients require to control of manage the issue to improve the self-care. Educational intervention to behavior change can be effective on self-care behavior. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of an educational intervention, based on the self-Efficacy theory on promoting self-care in hemodialysis patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy hemodialysis patients recruited in this study and divided randomly into intervention group (n = 35) and control group (n = 35) with convenience sampling in 2016 from Qom city, Iran. Data were collected before and 3 months after education using demographic questionnaire, self-efficacy, a valid researcher-made questionnaire regarding to awareness and self-care. The educational intervention was performed for the intervention group in 4 1-h sessions over 2 months. The data were analyzed through Paired t-test, Independent t-test, Chi-square, and Mann-Whitney at the significant level of 0.05. RESULTS: While variables in two groups did not show significant difference before education (P > 0.05), a significant increase was observed in variables of self-efficacy (P < 0.001), awareness (P < 0.001), and self-care dimensions (P < 0.05) between two groups after 3 months education. CONCLUSION: The results of this research suggested that employing educational programs based on the self-efficacy theory can lead to the improvement of the self-care behaviors in hemodialysis patients.