Nutritional Knowledge of Hemodialysis Patients in University Hospitals in Finland and Turkey

Objective: Nutrition is one of the substantial modifiable risk factors in the prevention and control of many diseases such as chronic kidney diseases. Nutrition knowledge can thus help in prevention. The objective of this study is to assess nutritional knowledge of patients on hemodialysis and determine if this differs and was linked to duration of the therapy in Finland and Turkey. Methods: The study was conducted in one university hospital dialysis center each in Finland and Turkey with hemodialysis patients with an age of ≥18 years. A questionnaire about demographic and disease characteristics and nutritional knowledge was administered face-to-face. Anthropometric measurements (body weight, edema-free dry weight, height, body mass index) were evaluated. Results: The study group consisted of 120 adults, 50 patients (14 female, 36 male) from Finland and 70 patients (21 women, 49 men) from Turkey. The mean nutritional knowledge score was 10.1 ± 3.11 for the Finnish patients and 9.2 ± 3.32 for the Turkish patients (p>0.05). There was a positive correlation between the nutritional knowledge score and body weight in Turkey and between the nutritional knowledge score and duration of dialysis in Finland (p<0.05). Conclusions: In both countries, the majority of patients with high nutritional knowledge scores (11-15 points) stated that they had received nutritional training from a dietician (in Finland: 58.3%, in Turkey: 66.7%). Thus training and mobilization of dietitians should be the main approach used to increase nutritional knowledge of dialysis patients.