Effectiveness of Nursing Educational Intervention on Vascular Access Self-Care in Hemodialysis

Background: Hemodialysis patients experience health-illness transitions, which are prompted by changes in social and personal roles as they adapt to chronic kidney disease and its treatments. In this context, nurses play a facilitative role in supporting these transitions, aiming to enhance the patients' sense of well-being. There is an increasing need to provide care that positively impacts clinical and health outcomes, including the empowerment of these patients to be as independent as possible including promoting self-care for their vascular access. The present study aims to assess the self-care profile regarding vascular access in a population of patients with chronic kidney disease undergoing outpatient hemodialysis and to evaluate the impact of educational nursing interventions on the transition process to self-care with vascular access in this population. Methods: The investigators conducted a prospective, quantitative, and cross-sectional study with an interventional methodology, which involved an initial diagnostic assessment about self-care behaviours with the arteriovenous fistula, followed by an educational intervention to promote adherence to self-care, and a subsequent re-evaluation of the outcomes after the intervention. The assessment of self-care behaviours with the arteriovenous fistula was carried out by the Self-Care Behaviour Assessment Scale with arteriovenous fistula in Hemodialysis. Data collection was split in three parts: sociodemographic characterization, clinical characterization of participants, and assessment of self-care behaviours with the AVF.