The effectiveness of nutritional monitoring by short message service reminder to albumin level of hemodialysis patients

One of the major problem contributing to haemodialysis failure is the problem of patient compliance. The support that can be given as a form of attention to patients can be carried out with continuous nutritional monitoring measures using a simple, effective and efficient method, namely Short Message Service (SMS) reminder. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of nutritional monitoring by SMS reminder to albumin levels of hemodialysis patients.

This was a quasi-experimental study with a pre-post with one group control design, involving 30 participants taken by purposive sampling technique. The inclusion criteria were >18 years of age, willing to be a participant and follow the procedure, having a mobile phone and be able to operate it, can read and write. Patients with systemic edema and malignancy complications were excluded. The independent variable was nutritional monitoring by SMS reminder, while the dependent variable was albumin level. Univariate and bivariate data were analyzed using independent T-test.

After the intervention, 100% of participants in the intervention group had normal albumin levels. However, the average difference between pre-post albumin levels in the treatment group was greater (0.87 mg/dL) than the control group (0.57 mg/dL) which was statistically significant (p-value = 0.04).

Nutritional monitoring by SMS reminder effectively affects the albumin level of hemodialysis patients.