World Kidney Day 2021: Activating patients' knowledge, skills, and confidence in self-managing kidney disease improves care and quality of life

Educate, empower and engage patients

BRUSSELS, March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- 10% of the population worldwide is affected by Chronic kidney disease (CKD) with over 2 million people worldwide receiving treatment with dialysis or a kidney transplant.

On 11 March, WKD 2021, which focuses on "Kidney Health for Everyone Everywhere – Living Well with Kidney Disease," aims to increase education and awareness about effective symptom management and patient empowerment, with the ultimate goal of encouraging the meaningful participation in every-day life of people living with kidney disease.

Read the full press release text here: https://www.worldkidneyday.org/resource/wkd-press-release-2021/.

The current disease-centric approach does not fully reflect the patients' priorities and values regarding living well with the disease. Effective strategies can help minimize the burden of CKD-related symptoms to improve patient satisfaction, quality of life, and ultimately life participation. "We want to stress that with timely identification and appropriate treatment, patients with kidney disease can lead a healthy and successful life and maintain their role and social functioning in line with their priorities, values and goals. It is everyone's responsibility to improve patients' understanding of their role, and provide a facilitating environment that improves their skills and allows them to get the most out of the healthcare system," jointly state Vivekanand Jha, president of the International Society of Nephrology (ISN), and Siu-Fai Lui, President of the International Federation of Kidney Foundations – World Kidney Alliance (IFKF-WKA), which lead the World Kidney Day (WKD) campaign.

World Kidney Day on 11 March 2021 will boost everyone's awareness of their kidneys as well as acknowledge the 850 million people living with kidney disease worldwide. One of the ways the public can take part in World Kidney Day is by showing support on social media using the hashtag #worldkidneyday.