Effectiveness of Family-Centered Care Education in Care Knowledge of Caregivers of Hemodialysis Patients

Background: Many families of dialysis patients consider the lack of knowledge about the disease and type of care as the main reason for the difficulty in providing effective care to patients. Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the effectiveness of family-centered care education in the care knowledge of caregivers of hemodialysis patients. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 80 primary caregivers of hemodialysis patients in two hospitals associated with Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, southeast Iran, in 2021. The family caregivers were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups (40 in each group) using permutation blocks. The experimental group received the family-based training program, and the control group received the usual care plan. The data were collected using the care knowledge questionnaire before and immediately after the intervention. Then, the data were analyzed using the chi-square test, independent t-test, paired samples t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) by SPSS software (version 22) with a significance level of less than 0.05. Results: The mean scores of caregivers’ knowledge in the intervention group before and after the intervention were 10.42 ± 3.23 and 21.47 ± 3.21 (P = 0.001) and in the control group were 11.27 ± 3.90 and 12.45 ± 3.40 (P = 0.12). Furthermore, the results of the independent samples t-test showed that the care knowledge of the participants in the intervention group improved significantly after the intervention (P = 0.001), compared to that of the control group (P = 0.29). The results of ANOVA showed that the mean scores of care knowledge of caregivers in the two groups were significantly different after the intervention (P = 0.001) Conclusions: Providing family-centered care education with the involvement of family caregivers can improve the care knowledge of the caregivers of hemodialysis patients. Given the significant role of caregivers in providing care services to these patients, special attention needs to be paid to the education of caregivers in educational programs.