Aim and objective.  The aim was to explore empowerment within the patient–staff encounter as experienced by out-patients with chronic kidney disease.

Background.  Empowerment has an important role to play in the patient–staff relationship in the case of patients with a chronic disease. When it comes to patients with chronic kidney disease, there has been little research on empowerment, for which reason interviewing such patients about their experiences of empowerment will provide useful knowledge within the context of out-patient care.

Design.  A qualitative interview study was chosen to gain an understanding of empowerment from the patient perspective.

Method.  The study was carried out at an out-patient clinic in Sweden and involved 20 patients with chronic kidney disease. The interviews were subjected to latent content analysis.

Results.  Five of the seven sub-themes emerging from the analysis represented empowerment: Accessibility according to need, Confirming encounter, Trust in the competence of the healthcare staff, Participation in decision-making, Learning enables better self-management. The other two represented non-empowerment: Meeting with nonchalance, Lack of dialogue and influence. From the seven sub-themes, one comprehensive theme was generated: Creation of trust and learning through encounter.

Conclusion.  The main finding regarding the central role of the creation of trust and learning through the patient–staff encounter underlines the importance of understanding empowerment from the patient’s perspective.

Relevance to clinical practice.  Nursing and other healthcare staff need knowledge and understanding of the meaning of empowerment from the patients’ perspective to meet their needs in out-patient care.

Background: Family members of persons with pre-dialysis chronic kidney disease may experience feelings of vulnerability and insecurity as the disease follows its course. Against this background, the aim of the present study was to explore empowerment in outpatient care as experienced by these family members.

Methods: An inductive approach for qualitative data analysis was chosen. The study sample comprised 12 family members of pre-dialysis patients at an outpatient kidney clinic. Two interviews with each family member were subjected to content analysis to gain an understanding of empowerment from the family members' perspective.

Results: Having strength to assume the responsibility was the main theme that emerged from the following five sub-themes: Being an involved participant, Having confirming encounters, Trusting in health-care staff, Comprehending through knowledge, and Feeling left out. Four of these five sub-themes were positive. The fifth subtheme illuminated negative experience, indicating the absence of empowerment.

Conclusions: Family members' experience of empowerment is dependent on their ability to assume the responsibility for a relative with chronic kidney disease when needed. The findings emphasise the need for a family perspective and the significance of a supportive environment for family members of persons in outpatient care.

Empowering interventions can improve person-centered care. A pre- and post-evaluation using interactive research involving two years of empowering interventions was designed to improve quality of care in outpatients with chronic kidney disease who were pre-dialysis. The results showed significantly increased empowerment in the intervention group. Interactive research facilitated the implementation of the empowerment intervention, which may increase sustainability over time.