The Effect of Educational Diet-Based Program on Liver Function in Children with Chronic Liver Disease: A Clinical Trial

Abstract

Introduction: Chronic liver disease is one of the most important diseases that considering the effect of this disease on quality of life and its interaction on the nutritional status of children and adolescents. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of Educational diet-based program on liver function in children with chronic liver disease.

Methods: This study was a two-group randomized controlled trial and pretest-posttest that was performed on 45 intervention group and 30 control group in Ghaem Mashhad hospital. In addition to routine care, the intervention group received a diet modification training program during 6 sessions of the workshop and the patients in the control group received routine care. The levels of bilirubin (total, direct), albumin, prothrombin, transaminases (AST, ALT) of the research units were assessed using blood samples before the intervention and after 12 weeks of follow-up. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software version 16 and independent t-test, paired t-test, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney and Q square tests.

Results: The  results of data analysis showed that the intervention of diet modification program has positive effects on liver-specific findings so that between the two groups of control and intervention after liver-specific tests of prothrombin time, albumin, aspartate transaminase, alanine Transaminases were significantly associated between the two groups (intervention and control (P≤0.05). The results were not significant for total and direct bilirubin, hepatomegaly and splenomegaly (P>0.05).

Conclusion: Considering the positive effect of educational intervention, it is recommended that parents and health care providers use diet modification training program as an effective solution to prevent undesirable complications of liver disease in children and provide them with relevant educational materials to take.