Personalized motivational support to help African American patients keep their dialysis appointments
Official title: MOVE Trial: MOtiVational Strategies to Empower African Americans to Improve Dialysis Adherence
Funded at Vanderbilt University Medical Center · NIH-11121793 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project uses culturally tailored motivational interviewing to help African American adults on hemodialysis stick to their treatment schedule and reduce hospital visits.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Vanderbilt University Medical Center NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Nashville, United States) |
| Project start | August 15, 2022 |
| Project end | May 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $552,242 |
| NIH project number | 5R01DK133530-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11121793 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are African American adults with end-stage kidney disease who receive in-center hemodialysis and have missed treatments or are at risk of non-adherence.
✕Less likely to help
People not receiving in-center hemodialysis (for example, on peritoneal dialysis), non-African American patients, or those who are already consistently adherent may be unlikely to gain benefit from this specific tailored intervention.
What this research studies
You would be offered personalized motivational interviewing sessions designed specifically for African American dialysis patients to talk about goals, barriers, and motivation. The sessions would happen alongside your regular dialysis care and involve your care team to build a stronger patient-provider connection. Your attendance at dialysis, reasons for missed treatments, and any hospital visits would be tracked over time. The researchers will use surveys and clinic records to see whether this tailored approach leads to more consistent dialysis attendance and fewer hospitalizations.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this approach could help you keep dialysis appointments more consistently, lower your risk of hospital stays, and improve long-term health outcomes.
How similar studies have gone: Motivational interviewing has helped improve health behaviors in other conditions, but using a culturally tailored version specifically to improve dialysis adherence in African Americans is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
-
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Umeukeje, Ebele M — Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- Study coordinator: Umeukeje, Ebele M
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
-
How dialysis facility growth affects care for people with end-stage kidney disease
New research will examine whether the spread of dialysis centers and new treatment technologies benefit patients with end-stage kidney disease, and whether benefits reach all communities.
-
MOVE Trial: Tailored motivational support to help African Americans stick with dialysis
A study tests a customized motivational interviewing approach to help African American dialysis patients stay adherent to their treatment, aiming to reduce hospitalizations and improve health.
-
Blood sugar monitoring for people on maintenance dialysis
This project tests how continuous glucose monitoring can better track blood sugar in people on dialysis to improve diabetes care and prevent complications.
-
Quality of life for people on home dialysis and their family caregivers
This grant studies how living with home dialysis affects daily life and the well-being of patients and their family caregivers.
-
Patient-provider conversations and unequal access to home dialysis and kidney transplant
This project explores how conversations between doctors and patients affect why some Black and Hispanic people with kidney disease don’t get home dialysis or preemptive kidney transplants as often as White or Asian patients.
-
CHOOSE Home: Using community health workers to boost home dialysis and social care in CKD
A real-world trial tests adding community health workers to an interdisciplinary CKD clinic to help patients access home dialysis options.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.