Being able to look after and manage your own health (also called self-management) is important for people with long-term conditions, like chronic kidney disease (CKD), to reduce the impact that the condition may have on your overall health and life.
People with earlier stages of CKD are often not aware of their condition and the potential impact that it may have on them. Our team developed a digital program to support people with earlier stages of CKD to better self-manage called My Kidneys & Me.
My Kidneys & Me — Leicester Kidney Lifestyle Team
My Kidneys & Me is designed to provide holistic CKD-specific self-management education, support, and guidance for people living with mild to moderate CKD. The program contains tailored, interactive information and support to improve CKD awareness and understanding, health knowledge, health-promoting behaviours (such as attending healthcare appointments, taking medications as prescribed, and having a healthy lifestyle), and confidence in self-management.
My Kidneys & Me has educational learning and how-to action (behaviour change) sessions, health trackers (e.g. monitoring blood pressure, symptoms, and exercise), goal-setting features, and forums for social support.
My Kidneys & Me has been now tested in a large multicentre RCT, with 420 people living with non-dialysis chronic kidney disease (CKD).
The trial showed positive effects on patient activation (the knowledge, skills, and confidence an individual has in managing their own health – key construct of self-management), with greater effects see in those with low levels of patient activation at the start of the trial.
Our findings were published in November 2024 in NPJ Digital Medicine.
They show that My Kidneys & Me can improve people’s knowledge of CKD self-management and their engagement in CKD self-management behaviours. Being able to better self-manage is linked to better health outcomes for patients, therefore My Kidneys & Me has the potential to improve CKD healthcare management.
We are very pleased with the results and are now looking at how we can implement and embed the program into routine clinical practice. Having My Kidneys & Me in routine practice will provide equitable access to self-management information and support for people living with CKD. We are also revising and refining the program to increase the uptake and engagement among disadvantaged and underserved groups.
I led the trial alongside Professor Alice Smith with support from colleagues from Leicester Diabetes Centre and the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences including Dr Matthew Graham-Brown.
Dr Matthew Graham-Brown is leading this work on how best to implement the My Kidneys & Me app. Matt said: “The findings of this study are really encouraging, and it is great to have an evidence-based tool that we can be used by primary and secondary care providers to support patients with kidney disease to understand and manage their disease better. It is going to be an important part of the way we move care for patients with kidney disease into our communities, so we are thrilled for what this will mean for kidney patients and their healthcare teams.”
Research institutions:
- University of Leicester:
– Leicester Kidney Lifestyle Team, Department of Population Health Sciences
– Diabetes Research Centre
– Department of Cardiovascular Sciences
- NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre
- University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
– Department of Renal Medicine
Funding statement:
This study is funded by the Stoneygate Trust and the Leicester NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. All PPIE activities were supported by two grants from the Leicester Kidney Care Appeal awarded to TJW and ACS.
Funders had no input into the study protocol or interpretation of findings. This is a summary of independent research funded by the Stoneygate Trust and carried out at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Stoneygate Trust, the NIHR, or the Department of Health and Social Care.