AN EXPLORATION OF THE FACTORS OF EMPOWERMENT AS PERCEIVED BY PERSONS WITH END STAGE RENAL FAILURE.
Contributors: University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 102
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The process of empowerment encourages individuals to take responsibility for their own lives, while supporting others in their efforts to develop their own respective potentials. The aims of nursing and empowerment are interrelated since both are processes which are based upon the human growth potential.

The purpose of this investigation was to gain an understanding of what individuals with end stage renal disease (ESRD) perceive as the factors which facilitated their capacity to become empowered. An exploratory qualitative approach was utilized in which Barrett's (1983) Power-as-Knowing-Participation-in-Change Tool (PKPCT, VII Part 2) was used as a means of identifying the empowered individuals. The final sample consisted of 11 individuals, 7 women and 4 men, with ESRD who had been on dialysis from 1.5 to 14 years.

The data yielded two overriding themes by which individuals with ESRD were facilitated in directing their own lives: Assets and Actions. Five subcategories were classified under the broad theme of assets: Purpose for Life, Realistic View, Positive Outlook, Support System, and Hope. The theme of actions has three subcategories: Accepts Responsibility, Makes Life-Style Choices, and Changing Life Patterns. A third theme emerged which centered on the factors that hindered participants in directing their own lives. Under this theme, three items fell: Decreased Physical Endurance, Financial Constraints, and Decreased Mobility.

It was found that some individuals with ESRD are empowered and have the capacity to bring about change and to direct some portion of their environment and move toward self-determination. Assets the individual possess are antecedents to actions. Participants suggested that accepting responsibility occurs before one can make life-style choices or accommodate these choices into one's life. Empowered individuals' assets help them to accommodate the factors which hinder them. Research is needed to further describe the concept of empowerment from a number of perspectives and to document interventions which facilitate empowerment.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-10, Section: B, page: 4455.

Thesis (D.S.N.)--UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM, 1989.

School code: 0005.