Understanding the low take-up of home-based dialysis through a shared decision-making lens: a qualitative study

Abstract

Objectives: To explore how people with chronic kidney disease who are pre-dialysis, family members and healthcare professionals together navigate common shared decision-making processes and to assess how this impacts future treatment choice.

Design: Coproductive qualitative study, underpinned by the Making Good Decisions in Collaboration shared decision-model. Semistructured interviews with a purposive sample from February 2019 - January 2020. Interview data were analysed using framework analysis. Coproduction of logic models/roadmaps and recommendations.

Setting: Five Welsh kidney services.

Participants: 95 participants (37 patients, 19 family members and 39 professionals); 44 people supported coproduction (18 patients, 8 family members and 18 professionals).

Findings: Shared decision-making was too generic and clinically focused and had little impact on people getting onto home dialysis. Preferences of where, when and how to implement shared decision-making varied widely. Apathy experienced by patients, caused by lack of symptoms, denial, social circumstances and health systems issues made future treatment discussions difficult. Families had unmet and unrecognised needs, which significantly influenced patient decisions. Protocols containing treatment hierarchies and standards were understood by professionals but not translated for patients and families. Variation in dialysis treatment was discussed to match individual lifestyles. Patients and professionals were, however, defaulting to the perceived simplest option. It was easy for patients to opt for hospital-based treatments by listing important but easily modifiable factors.

Conclusions: Shared decision-making processes need to be individually tailored with more attention on patients who could choose a home therapy but select a different option. There are critical points in the decision-making process where changes could benefit patients. Patients need to be better educated and their preconceived ideas and misconceptions gently challenged. Healthcare professionals need to update their knowledge in order to provide the best advice and guidance. There needs to be more awareness of the costs and benefits of the various treatment options when making decisions.

Keywords: adult nephrology; chronic renal failure; dialysis; end stage renal failure; qualitative research.

Figure 1

Three-talk model of shared decision-making adapted for pre-dialysis decision making.