Peer support to improve adjustment to dialysis and transplant
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The role of peer support in improving adjustment to dialysis and transplantation
IRAS ID
330749
Contact name
Anna Winterbottom
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Many people receiving regular dialysis or living with a kidney transplant find it hard to adapt to treatment related routines and restrictions. People can feel particularly frustrated and disillusioned when their expectations aren’t matched by their lived experience. Health professionals provide information to help people prepare for kidney treatments, but it may be that people who have lived with kidney treatments could provide more easily understood and relevant information. This is called ‘peer support’, when people with kidney disease are helped by other people with the same illness to understand the lived experience of illness and treatment. Peer support can be targeted at specific ethnic groups and can match supporters and people with kidney disease from a similar cultural and religious background. We know that many people with kidney disease like to learn from peer supporters and
can feel more hopeful and confident after doing so.
This research project will explore how learning from peer supporters might improve patient’s lived experience of treatment, after dialysis initiation and post-transplantation, by helping them better know what to expect from the treatment.
To do this, we will ask people about their expectations and experiences of kidney treatments both before and after they start them. We’ll particularly ask if they learned anything from people who already had experience of those treatments, and if so, how it affected them. We’ll use both interviews and questionnaires. We will then produce a report of our findings to help kidney units better help patients prepare for kidney treatments.REC name
North West - Greater Manchester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/NW/0078
Date of REC Opinion
6 Mar 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion