A Study on the Educational Needs of Patients with Kidney Transplants and their Family Members after Discharge from Hospital

The purpose of this study was to explore the educational needs of patients with, kidney transplants and their family members to develop a rehabilitational and educational program. Data were collected from January 29, 1999 to April 20, 1999 with interviews using a structured questionnaire. There were 184 subjects in this study. of them, 107 were patients who had kidney transplants and had visited at the out-patient department of three general hospitals located in Seoul and 77 were family members. The questionnaire used for this study was developed by the investigator through a literature review and from data collected from 11 professional personnel and three kidney transplant patients and their families. The data were analyzed using the SAS program with t-test, ANOVA, Scheff test, Pearson correlation coefficient. 1) In the patient group, total mean score for educational needs was 154.61 and the item mean score was 3.96. For the family group, total mean score for educational needs was 168.84 and the item mean score was 4.15. So in the family group, educational needs were scored higher than by the patient group. With regard to domains, both patient and family groups had as the highest educational needs, the domain of physical health and the top ten items in the educational needs were also in the domain of physical health. 2) In the patient group, women and the divorce/ bereavement group had higher educational needs in the domain of nutritional management, those who had been admitted longer than four weeks from their kidney transplant had higher educational needs in the domain of physical health and those who were less than 4 years from their transplant had higher educational needs in the domain of follow-up care. In the family group, those who were Catholics and had high school education had higher educational needs in the domain of nutritional management. 3) In the patient group, academic background was positively correlated(r=.208, p=.031) to educational needs.