Effect of an educational program on awareness about peritoneal dialysis among patients on hemodialysis.

Several years after the initial usage of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis
(CAPD), the percentage of patients using this continues to be very low constituting about 15% of
all patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). In this study, we attempt to define the impact of
an educational program for improving the use of CAPD. This is a quasi-experimental study
(before-after) conducted with educational materials including workshop, teaching by booklet and
showing educational films, performed in Urmia, Iran. We designed a questionnaire for data collection
and enrolled 160 patients with an aim-based sampling method. We used descriptive statistics
and Friedman test for analysis in SPSS software version 11.5. The overall patients’ information
about CAPD defined by total scoring was as follows: 75% had little information; 19% had
moderate information and 6% of patients were well informed. All the information levels increased
after intervention. Our study suggests that the poor utilization of CAPD is due to relative unawareness
about PD and/or lack of adequate facilities