The effects of an empowerment education program for kidney transplantation patients

Abstract

This study was conducted to develop an Empowerment Education Program (EEP) for kidney transplant patients and to test the program’s effects on uncertainty, self-care ability, and compliance. Methods: The research was conducted using a nonequivalent control group with a pretest-posttest design. The participants were 53 outpatients (experimental group: 25, control group: 28) who were receiving hospital treatment after kidney transplants. After the pre-test, patients in the experimental group underwent a weekly EEP for six weeks. The post-test was conducted immediately after, and four weeks after the program’s completion in the same manner as the pre-test. For the control group, we conducted a post-test six and ten weeks after the pre-test, without and program intervention. A repeated measure ANOVA was performed to compare the change scores on main outcomes. Results: Uncertainty was significantly lower in the experimental group than in the control group, both immediately after (t=-3.84, p=