This project has awarded the help from the 2021 Research Grant for the Barcelona College of Nurses, for “Effectiveness of a telematic educational program of the cadaver donor transplant process in hemodialysis patients in central Catalonia and Girona.”
The main researcher is Ester Oriol-Vila, and the project is part of her doctoral thesis. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the effectiveness of an eight-week telematic educational program, adapted to the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, on the level of literacy for health, quality of life and nutritional status in hemodialysis patients who are on a waiting list for their first Kidney Donor Transplant (TR) from a cadaver donor, with respect to the information given from each center.
The methodology used in this project is clinical trial, pre and postintervention and final posttest, random assignment to two groups of patients [intervention group (educational program) and control group (usual information)] from the health regions of Central Catalonia and Girona during the year 2022. Older people will be included, patients transplanted from any organ and who have an idiomatic and / or audiovisual barrier will be excluded. The variables and instruments are: Literacy (HLS-EU-Q-16 questionnaire, NOC Behavioral Health literacy), Level of Knowledge (NOCs health promotion, therapeutic procedures of the preTR, TR and postTR periods), Quality of life (KDQoL questionnaire -SF, NOC personal health status and quality of life), Nutritional Status (NOCs nutritional status: biochemical determinations, electrolyte balance and severity of fluid overload), body mass index and abdominal circumference.
The intervention is an eight-week preTR telematic educational program, led by nurses who are experts in hemodialysis and / or the TR process.
The Data Collection and Statistical Analysis will be a descriptive analysis and an analysis of matched data will be performed at the different times evaluated.
The expected benefits with the implementation of the educational program proposed in this project will have a positive impact on the quality of life and the improvement of health education. It is expected to empower patients on a kidney transplant list and families and at the same time provide emotional support.
Its development and implementation will ensure and guarantee the continuum of care for this type of pluripathological patients who have a high morbidity-mortality and health cost. Also the information given to the patient who is on the transplant list will have a continuity with the education of the transplant process, greater assimilation and active participation of the patient of his disease (empowerment and expert patient).
Conducting this research promotes and highlights the need to create the figure of the nurse of advanced practice focused on pretransplant consultation in each hemodialysis center. The nursing activities of this consultation would be aimed at promoting the individualized education of patients and accompanying them throughout this transition. We need these patients to arrive at the kidney transplant with the best conditions to overcome the intervention and when this patient is transplanted they are expected to have a better survival of the donor kidney, better control of medication and overweight.
The ultimate clinical goal of this research is to ensure that the hemodialysis patient arrives in the best health conditions for a kidney transplant, that it is as long as possible and that he has a good quality of life. This is why an educational program is needed from the time the patient enters the waiting list until the post-transplant.
Other researchers in the group involved are: Emi Chirveches, Xavier Palomar, Esmeralda Molina, Laura Rota, Alícia Minaya, Meltem Yildirim, Jaume Miquel March, and Miquel Sitjar. There are also external researchers like Carme Roura, Sònia Elvira, Guillermo Pedreira, Anna Bach, Marta Colomer, Isabel López, David Seoane, and Renata Habdas.
The main center is CHV, and the participating centers are: UVIC-UCC, Hospital del Mar, Hospital Universitari Dr. Josep Trueta, Clínica Girona, Serveis de Salut Integral Baix Empordà, Fundació Salut Empordà, Xarxa assistencial universitària de Manresa, Consorci Hospitalari de l’Anoia.