The American Society of Nephrology (ASN)’s magazine publication, Kidney News, recently featured a front-page cover story highlighting an article published by UNC Kidney Center researchers.
This study was led by UNC’s Dr. Mark Foster, a student in the School of Medicine, who collaborated with UNC Kidney Center’s Drs. Ron Falk and Maria Ferris. The article, Personal Disaster Preparedness of Dialysis Patients in North Carolina, was published in the October issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Researchers described dialysis patients as among the most vulnerable patients during a natural or man-made disaster. They found that the general disaster preparedness of most study participants was poor; dialysis patients were found to be poorly prepared to shelter in place or to evacuate in the face of a disaster. However, home peritoneal dialysis patients were more likely to be prepared for a disaster compared with hemodialysis patients. These findings were noted regardless of age, gender, race, education, literacy, and socioeconomic status.
The authors recommended that further education regarding personal and dialysis-specific disaster preparedness is needed.
You can read the story in Kidney News here.
This study was also featured in the US News and World Report, which you can read here.