PURPOSE: Clinical guidelines call for the inclusion of exercise interventions in every patient's dialysis session, but these recommendations are rarely adopted. Healthcare providers play a key role in this. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore how healthcare providers perceive the benefits, risks and barriers of intradialytic exercise (IDE). METHODS: We conducted 21 individual, semi-structured interviews with 11 nurses, 5 nephrologists, 3 training assistants and 2 managers from two dialysis centres in Slovakia. Verbatim transcripts of digitally recorded interviews were thematically analysed using MAXQDA®. RESULTS: Participants reported the benefits of IDE as improvements in patients' physical and psychosocial functioning, independence and self-efficacy, clinical profile and quality of therapy. As risks of IDE, they most frequently reported exercise-related damage to vascular access, insufficient individualization of training and musculoskeletal injuries. The presence of psychological problems among patients was reported as a major barrier for initiating and maintaining patients' exercise. Other reported barriers included limitations in financial and personnel resources of haemodialysis care. CONCLUSIONS: Safe and sustainable implementation of IDE, which might improve a patient's well-being, need to be prescribed in alignment with the patient's clinical profile, be delivered individually according to the patient's characteristics and requires adjustments in the available resources.

2nd Department of Internal Medicine Faculty of Medicine Pavol Jozef Safarik University Kosice Slovakia

Department of Community and Occupational Medicine University Medical Center Groningen University of Groningen Groningen Netherlands

Department of Health Psychology and Research Methodology Faculty of Medicine Pavol Jozef Safarik University Kosice Slovakia

Fresenius Medical Care Dialysis Services Kosice Kosice Slovakia

Graduate School Kosice Institute for Society and Health Faculty of Medicine Pavol Jozef Safarik University Kosice Slovakia

Institute of Applied Psychology Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences Comenius University in Bratislava Bratislava Slovakia

Olomouc University Social Health Institute Palacky University Olomouc Olomouc Czech Republic

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