Parent-child Communication in Kidney Disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Helping parents with Chronic Kidney Disease talk to their children: Exploring parent-child communication about kidney disease and developing support resources.
IRAS ID
181064
Contact name
Heather Buchanan
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 8 months, 2 days
Research summary
Chronic kidney disease is a serious and complex health condition which affects around 10 – 16% of the population globally, a figure which remains on the increase. It poses many challenging symptoms such as fatigue and can involve difficult and demanding treatment regimes such as peritoneal and haemodialysis which, in addition to potentially causing further treatment related symptoms, can often place great restrictions on the patients’ lives thereby negatively impact on overall quality of life2.
What is known, mainly from reports from patients at the NUH Renal Unit, is that another major challenge that parents or grandparents with chronic kidney disease face is being able to communicate effectively with their children and grandchildren about their illness including the aetiology, treatments, symptoms, restrictions and prognosis given. A recent review3 looking at experiences of parents undergoing dialysis also highlighted that there is an ‘urgent need’ for research to determine the experiences and needs of parents or grandparents with chronic kidney disease in order to provide empirical, patient-centred care.
Therefore, this study aims to identify the challenges these patients have in communicating about their illness to their children or grandchildren, establish what kind of resources they would find useful to assist with this communication, and what would be the preferred content of such resources.
REC name
East of England - Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EE/0343
Date of REC Opinion
7 Sep 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion