Determinants of exercise encouragement practices in hemodialysis staff

The objective of this study was to survey patient care staff to (a) determine their perceived skills for and attitudes toward assessing physical functioning and encouraging exercise, (b) assess practice related to assessment of physical functioning and exercise encouragement, and (c) identify factors that predict encouragement of exercise in patient care staff. This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study in which questionnaires were completed by 100 patient care staff (RN, LVN, RD, SW, and patient care technicians) in five freestanding hemodialysis clinics. Frequency responses were calculated for the items of interest, and multiple regression analysis was performed to identify predictor variables of exercise encouragement practice (i.e., frequency of encouragement of exercise to patients). Four variables significantly predicted exercise encouragement activity: job position requiring professional training, the perception that patients lacked motivation to exercise, the perception that the staff member did not have skills to motivate patients to exercise, and the perception that it was not a part of the job responsibility.