Development and effectiveness of dietary self-care promotion program using online community for hemodialysis patients: a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Purpose: This study aimed to develop and evaluate a dietary self-care promotion program for hemodialysis patients based on Hurley's self-efficacy model, utilizing an online community to enhance the dietary self-care behavior of patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Methods: The needs of hemodialysis patients were identified, and an online community-based dietary self-care promotion program was developed with expert evaluations. 44 hemodialysis patients were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n=22) and a control group (n=22). The program was applied to the experimental group for four weeks. Before and after the intervention, as well as four weeks after the intervention, dietary self-efficacy, dietary self-care behavior, interdialytic weight gain, serum phosphorus, and serum potassium were assessed in both groups.

Results: Significant differences over time and between groups were observed in dietary self-efficacy, interdialytic weight gain, serum phosphorus, and serum potassium. The interaction between time and group was also significant. While no significant differences were found over time in dietary self-care behavior, significant group differences and interaction effects between time and group were identified.

Conclusions: The results indicate that the dietary self-care promotion program using an online community for hemodialysis patients is more effective in enhancing dietary self-efficacy and dietary self-care behavior compared to conventional treatment. This suggests the clinical applicability of the proposed dietary self-care promotion program.

Trial registration: This study was registered in the Clinical Research Information Service system (No: KCT0007920).