Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develope an aerobic exercise program based on Social Cognitive Theory and to evaluate the developed program in terms of cognitive aspect, behavioural aspect and health outcome.
Methods: The aerobic exercise program in this study has been developed based on Social Cognitive Theory, and twenty questions in the program have been verified by specialists in a peer evaluation process by calculating the program’s CVI(Content Validity Index). The aerobic exercise program is up to eight weeks long, and it has two kinds of aerobic exercise: intradialytic aerobic exercise and walking. The latter exercise is designed to be done by patients up to seven days a week, and the former exercise is designed to be done three times a week. A total of sixty patients undergoing hemodialysis for end-stage renal disease had assessment of their cognitive aspect, behavioural aspect and health outcome by self-efficacy for exercise (SEE), outcome expectations for exercise (OEE), international physical activity questionnaires (IPAQ), passometer step, center for epidemiological studies depression scale (CES-D), a 12-item short-form health survey (SF-12), Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and hematologic index before and after the aerobic exercise program based on Social Cognitive Theory. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, χ2 test, Mann-Whitney U test.
Results: The sixty patients completed 8 weeks of intradialytic aerobic exercise and walking in the aerobic exercise program. No patient developed major complications from the program. After the aerobic exercise program developed in this study, there was a significant improvement in hematocrit (t=2.08, p=.042), hemoglobin (t=2.24, p=.029), protein (t=2.56, p=.013) and albumin (U=278, p=.010).
Conclusions: A well designed aerobic exercise based on Social Cognitive Theory can be performed safely with proper supervision and patient education, and consequently it can result in the increase of physical activity and the improvement of hematologic index.