A paper authored by Dr Konstadina Griva from the Department of Psychology, NUS, was awarded a distinction for being among the top 10 best abstracts submitted to the prestigious European Renal Association and European Dialysis and Transplant Association’s (ERA-EDTA) annual congress.

The paper entitled ‘Short and long-term outcomes of the hemodialysis self management intervention randomised trial (HED-SMART) – a practical low intensity intervention to improve adherence and clinical markers’ was one of more than 2,400 abstracts submitted for consideration by the expert international panel.


Dr Konstantina Griva is the principal investigator on a randomized controlled trial of self-management intervention funded by National Kidney Foundation, Singapore (HEmoDialysis Self MAnagement Randomised Trial; HED SMART). For patients receiving hemodialysis it is vital that diet, fluid and medication recommendations are closely adhered to. However, the success of self management is often patchy and the importance of following the advice is not well understood.

The work led by Dr Konstadina Griva and collaborators examined the use of a HED-SMART intervention, a four session, group based, self management intervention on treatment adherence for patients on hemodialysis. They found the HED-SMART program had significant post-intervention improvements in both clinical markers and self-report adherence.

The ERA-EDTA is one of the fastest growing Medical Association whose purpose is to encourage and to report advances in the field of clinical nephrology, dialysis, renal transplantation and related subjects. Their annual conference is the world leading event for practitioners and researchers in the fields of clinical nephrology, hypertension, dialysis and kidney transplantation.