Development of the Self-Care for Adults on Dialysis Tool (Scad) (Report‪)‬

Background Living with end stage renal disease (ESRD) necessitates regular dialysis treatments in conjunction with strict fluid and dietary restrictions, as well as complex medication regimens. Unfortunately, adults on dialysis cannot simply attend to the dialysis treatment; their self-care abilities and behaviours require life-long readjustment, if positive clinical outcomes are going to be reached (Braun Curtin, Mapes, Schatell, & Burrows-Hudson, 2005). Nephrology nurses routinely provide self-care instructions without any quantitative assessment tools that measure self-care abilities and behaviours in adults on dialysis. Providing information alone is insufficient when caring for a person with a complex chronic illness. Nurses need to determine the individual's capacity for self-care prior to providing health education. Nurses also require a method of assessing changes in self-care in response to the individual's illness trajectory and to nursing interventions.