Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease: How Can They Make Informed Nutritional Decisions?

Abstract

In chronic kidney disease (CKD), the kidney’s functions of removal of waste product from the body are gradually impaired, causing the death of over 2.4 million people globally (International Society of Nephrology, 2018). The existing therapy for CKD is either dialysis or kidney transplant alongside modification of lifestyle behaviours. Successful dialysis therapy for patients with CKD requires adherence to diet prescriptions to avoid further accumulation of waste products in the blood and development of infections (Campbell & Rossi, 2014; Rysz, Franczyk, Ciałkowska-Rysz, & GlubaBrzózka, 2017). Although diet is one of the most modifiable lifestyle factors in the management of patients with CKD, adherence to dietary prescriptions is a challenge for most patients (Herselman, 2008). There is limited accessible documented information, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa on CKD (Stanifer et al., 2014; Yang et al., 2020). Additionally, the reasons why patients with CKD on hemodialysis and their family caregivers fail to adhere to the diet prescriptions in the African context are not clearly understood. In our study, we attempted to examine adherence to diet prescriptions among adult patients with CKD on hemodialysis at the national teaching and referral hospitals in Kenya.