PhD defence

Breaking Barriers, Personalizing Pathways - Psychological health and self-management of people with chronic kidney disease

• C.K. Cardol

Date

Thursday 16 March 2023

Time

13:45 - 14:30 hour

Address

Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden

Summary

For people with chronic kidney disease (CKD), adhering to a range of self-management tasks—such as healthy eating, frequent physical activity, and non-smoking—is crucial. However, changing health behaviors is difficult. To support patients in doing so, an eHealth care pathway was developed and evaluated.

The results provide different insights into patients' priorities and care needs. Many individuals with CKD experience problems in self-management, which can be hindered by many different barriers of which a common one is psychological distress. Therefore, personalized interventions are needed with screening and treatment of both psychological distress and suboptimal self-management, tailored to the specific barriers and needs of the individual patient. The E-GOAL eHealth care pathway is an example of such a personalized intervention, combining cognitive behavioral therapy with self-management support.

Patients were enthusiastic about the eHealth care pathway. However, in a randomized study, the intervention was not effective in reducing psychological distress compared with regular care only. Patients did experience improvements in areas of functioning and self-management that they prioritized themselves. These mixed results show that interventions could be implemented that are person-tailored, with personalized outcomes that reflect individually meaningful treatment goals and improvements for every patient.

Supervisor(s)

• Prof. A.W.M. Evers
• Dr. S. van Dijk

PhD dissertations

Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.

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