(HealthDay News) — The Knowledge Assessment of Renal Transplantation (KART) 2.0 instrument is valid for assessing patients’ knowledge of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and kidney transplantation, according to a study published online March 24 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Amy D. Waterman, Ph.D., from Houston Methodist Hospital, and colleagues developed the KART 2.0 instrument to assess patients’ knowledge of CKD and kidney transplantation using a sample of 977 patients with stages 3 to 5 CKD. Cognitive interviews were conducted followed by item response theory (IRT) to reduce 48 candidate items.
The researchers found that four items were modified and 11 omitted after cognitive interviews. Two scales resulted from IRT analyses: the KART 2.0-Transplant Knowledge Scale (16 items) and the KART 2.0-CKD Knowledge Scale (nine items). The scales were unbiased to capture information across self-identified race, primary language, CKD stage and sex. Both scales were able to differentiate patients who spent less than one hour versus one or more hours speaking with health professionals, reading about kidney disease, reading about kidney transplantation and reading about living donor kidney transplant.
“Advancing the patient centeredness of CKD care first requires ensuring that patients have a comprehensive understanding of their disease and treatment options,” the authors write. “The KART 2.0-Transplant Knowledge scale and the KART 2.0-CKD Knowledge scale address this need by giving clinicians and researchers valid and reliable tools to identify those patients in most need of education and counseling.”
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
