Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the retention effects of an individualized dietary education program for hemodialysis patients on diet knowledge, diet self-care compliance, and physiological indices, thus to find the most effective time period for re-education. Method: This study utilized one-group repeated pretest-posttest design. The participants were 52 hemodialysis patients in C hospital, Gyeonggi-Do. Data were collected at 4 and 12 weeks after the education from January through April 2016. Results: There was significant increases in diet knowledge even 12 weeks after the education (p = .007). Diet self-care compliance showed a significant increase at 4 weeks (p= .001), but a decrease at 12 weeks after the education. The level of blood natrium was significantly decreased between 4 and 12 weeks after the education (p= .006). The weight was significantly decreased at 12 weeks after the education. Conclusion: It has been identified that re-education for hemodialysis patients should be implemented between 4 and 12 weeks after education in order to maintain patients' diet self-care compliance, an ultimate aim of diet education. By helping them with their self-care compliance, the patients would maintain their physical and psychological function optimally, thus contributing to a better quality of life among hemodialysis patients. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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