Introduction: Educational interventions and information for Acute Renal Failure patients delay dialysis and improve several outcomes (Hb values, blood pressure, complications).
Method: The Quality of Life (QoL) of patients referring to 12 North Italian dialysis centres was assessed with the SF-36 and compared between 5 centres that adopted a multidisciplinary educational approach (4-5 individual or multiprofessional group meetings of 45-60 minutes each, with patients and relatives) and 7 routine care. Patients were selected if had started a planned dialysis treatment from 2-6 months.
Results: 48 patients were cared with multiprofessional group meetings and with 51 routine care. The two groups were comparable for the main characteristics. On average, patients were on dialysis from 4 months. Mean scores for all dimensions of QoL were higher in multiprofessional group patients except for emotional role, but differences disappeared in multivariate analyses.
Conclusions: Although differences are not statistically significant, they suggest a favourable impact of multidisciplinary care. Studies on larger sample are necessary to confirm these results.