Effectiveness of a Structured Intervention on the Development of Self-Care Behaviors With AVF in HD Patients

"Theoretical Part: structured intervention involved an educational group session with the purpose of teaching patients how to identify situations that can compromise AVF working. Each presentation allowed a maximum of eight patients and took 30 minutes. Each presentation was assessed in the end by asking participants to identify the signs and symptoms of infection, thrombosis and steal syndrome and to describe the care to be taken during dialysis and in the period outside dialysis.~Practical Part: started a week after the theoretical part, lasting for two weeks, and was given to each participant in an appropriate room at the beginning of the HD treatment. Interactive training sessions were conducted using an informal approach with the objective of developing skills of inspection and palpation of the AVF arm. Inspection had the purpose of enabling participants to identify situations that could compromise the working of the AVF. Each patient was given two 15-minute sessions."