Impact of patient education on health related quality of life of dialysis patients

The Dialysis patients require life time treatments which may cause side effects that impair their quality of life. Studies have shown that when pharmacists were involved in the care of dialysis patients, significant improvements in patients' HRQoL were achieved. This study aimed to assess the impact of patient education on HRQoL of Dialysis patients. This was a prospective, open comparative study. This study was approved by the ethics committee of KIMS Hospital, Bangalore. Patients were kept under observation for a period of one month. We assessed the HRQoLbefore and after providing them patient education. We provided patient education regarding the disease, medication, storage of medication, OTC drugs, diet, exercise, dressing, emotion sharing, and problems occurring during and after dialysis. The HRQoLof the patients was assessed using SF-36 Questionnaire. After the patient education the improvement in HRQoLof dialysis patients was significant (p<0.05). At the end of study patients had significantly (P<0.05) higher HRQoLscore as compared to their scores before receiving patient education. Our study concludes that patient education can play an important role in the improving the HRQoLof patients on Dialysis.