Successful self-management is crucial to helping hemodialysis (HD) patients achieve a successful balance between controlling their disease and living a normal life. The purpose of the study was to develop and psychometrically test a new instrument for measuring hemodialysis patient self-management behaviors. This study was divided three stages. In the first, dimensions determination, stage, instrument specifications were set based on self-management concept analysis attributes and focus group findings. In the second, items generation, stage, items generated for the instrument were drawn from a previous focus group study conducted by the authors. In the third, psychometrical testing, stage, eight experts were invited to validate instrument content. The hemodialysis self-management instrument (HD-SMI) was pilot tested on 57 HD patients. To examine HD-SMI psychometric properties, data were collected from 196 subjects recruited from four hospital HD centers. Four factors extracted through exploratory factor analysis, including partnership, self-care, problem-solving skills, and emotion management, explained 45.13% of total variance. Cronbach's α coefficients of the HD-SMI total scale was .87, and of four subscales ranged from .70 to .78. The two-week test-retest correlation was .86. Results indicate that the hemodialysis self-management instrument provides good reliability and validity. The instrument may be employed to measure self-management efficacy in hemodialysis patients.
Successful self-management is crucial to helping hemodialysis (HD) patients achieve a successful balance between controlling their disease and living a normal life. The purpose of the study was to develop and psychometrically test a new instrument for measuring hemodialysis patient self-management behaviors. This study was divided three stages. In the first, dimensions determination, stage, instrument specifications were set based on self-management concept analysis attributes and focus group findings. In the second, items generation, stage, items generated for the instrument were drawn from a previous focus group study conducted by the authors. In the third, psychometrical testing, stage, eight experts were invited to validate instrument content. The hemodialysis self-management instrument (HD-SMI) was pilot tested on 57 HD patients. To examine HD-SMI psychometric properties, data were collected from 196 subjects recruited from four hospital HD centers. Four factors extracted through exploratory factor analysis, including partnership, self-care, problem-solving skills, and emotion management, explained 45.13% of total variance. Cronbach's α coefficients of the HD-SMI total scale was .87, and of four subscales ranged from .70 to .78. The two-week test-retest correlation was .86. Results indicate that the hemodialysis self-management instrument provides good reliability and validity. The instrument may be employed to measure self-management efficacy in hemodialysis patients.