Optimising Staff-Patient Communication in Advanced Renal Disease: P1

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Optimising Staff-Patient Communication in Advanced Renal Disease (Phase 1): Understanding communication to develop training

• IRAS ID

  279084

• Contact name

  Lucy Selman

• Contact email

  lucy.selman@bristol.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Bristol

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 9 months, 0 days

• Research summary

  The OSCAR study: Optimising Staff-Patient Communication in Advanced Renal Disease
  
  Annually in the UK, 3,500 adults over 65 with end-stage kidney disease start dialysis. They are the fastest growing group of recipients and providing dialysis for them costs £312 million a year. Yet for older people, the survival benefits of dialysis are uncertain and its quality of life impact greatest. Comprehensive conservative care is a beneficial alternative to dialysis for older patients, particularly those with comorbidity or frailty, but there is huge unwarranted variation in rates of conservative care: from 5% to 95% across UK renal units. One reason for this is inconsistency in how clinicians communicate about treatment options, which strongly influences patients’ decision-making. Furthermore, COVID-19 has changed the way renal outpatient units are being run in the UK, with many renal services implementing online and telephone consultations. This has brought to the forefront the question of how renal clinicians can best support patients with advanced kidney disease deciding which treatment to prepare for, when face-to-face consultations for this purpose are restricted due to hospitals’ infection control requirements or unadvisable due to the clinical vulnerability of those living with the disease.

  The OSCAR study is a two-phase research project, which aims to produce a training package for kidney clinicians to support them in clinical consultations with older patients with end stage kidney disease. This application is for phase 1 of the research, which will involve: ethnographic observation, collating patient information resources, and interviews with clinicians (work package 1), and video-recording consultations between patients (and carers, if present) and their kidney clinicians, clinician, patient and carer questionnaires, and interviewing patients and carers (work package 2).

• REC name

  London - Bromley Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  21/LO/0280

• Date of REC Opinion

  9 Jun 2021

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion