Effectiveness of warm footbath on fatigue among patient with chronic renal failure

Kidney diseases are silent killers, which largely affect the quality of life. As the kidney function slows the symptoms of uremia are experienced includes feeling of tired or weak, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, etc. Fatigue is a debilitating symptom experienced by CRF patients. Fatigue has a considerable effect on patients health related quality of life. A study is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of warm footbath on fatigue among patient with chronic renal failure. A one-group pretest posttest design is used for the present study. The study is conducted at the Pradyumna Bal Memorial Hospital (KIMS) in Nephrology unit (both male and female) ward. Sample size consists of 30 hospitalized CRF patients who met the inclusion criteria by using the purposive Sampling technique. Structured interview schedule of Piper fatigue Scale is used to assess the fatigue. The study started with pre assessment and followed by warm footbath given. Footbath procedure is held for 30 minutes upto 7 days. The mean posttest score (y=2.76) is lower than the mean pretest score (x=7.19). The paired t test is found to be highly significant and the P less than 0.001. Based on the chi-square values and the P values obtained in the following demographic variables has the significance such as age, sex, education, occupation and years of suffering with CRF. The study concluded that the warm footbath is effective in reducing the fatigue of patients with CRF.