Open communication with providers may improve dietary adherence in patients on dialysis
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Key takeaways:
- Patient barriers to dietary adherence included communication, education and dietary habits.
- Health care providers marked communication, patient education and socioeconomic status as obstacles.
Open communication with health care providers may help improve dietary adherence in patients on hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, according to a recently published study.
“Adhering to a diet while undergoing dialysis may be challenging due to several factors,” Elizabeth G. Hunter, of the student in the food science and human nutrition department at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and colleagues wrote.
The team aimed to “investigate hemodialysis [and] peritoneal dialysis patients’ barriers to dietary adherence, identify strategies to overcome these barriers and examine dialysis providers’ perceptions toward patients’ barriers to dietary adherence,” Hunter and colleagues wrote in the study.
The investigators conducted a qualitative descriptive trial from February 2022 to May 2022. The study used a qualitative descriptive analysis, involving 21 participants on hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis. Patients responded to a 57-item food frequency questionnaire, and researchers collected 6 months of serum laboratory values from medical charts. The team also gathered 11 health care provider interviews before employing a content analysis methodology to identify specific themes. Researchers conducted various tests to examine diet quality and laboratory values.
According to results, patients had a median diet quality score of 36, with no observed differences between patient populations. Also, researchers found no differences in serum laboratory values between populations based on Mann-Whitney U tests. Barriers to dietary adherence identified by patients included communication, patient education and dietary habits, the results indicated. Meanwhile, health care providers marked communication, patient education and socioeconomic status as obstacles. Strategies to overcome these barriers included enhancing communication between all people involved in care and tailoring educational information to the patient’s background, the researchers noted.
“Although consistencies were identified in the barriers and strategies to dietary adherence from both patients and providers, there were some discrepancies in perceptions of barriers from the providers,” the authors wrote. “Open communication among patients and providers, and enhancement of nutrition education may improve dietary adherence.”
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