Understanding the psychological needs of renal young adults

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Understanding how best to meet the psychological needs of renal young adult patients

• IRAS ID

  326169

• Contact name

  Amy Waugh

• Contact email

  amy.waugh@nca.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Northern Care Alliance

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 5 months, 28 days

• Research summary

  Kidney disease presents a number of challenges in patients’ lives such as frequent hospital visits, dietary and fluid restrictions, and invasive medical procedures and treatments. Many areas of life are affected by chronic kidney disease such as their health, identity, emotions, family, and lifestyle. Compared to the general population, they have a poorer quality of life and an increased risk of psychological difficulties. For young kidney patients there can be additional complications such as the impact on peer relationships and moving from child service. Young adults are at increased risk of loss of transplant, emergency admissions post-transplantation, non-attendance to clinic appointments, and non-adherence to medication. There is currently little research which indicated how best to support the psychological needs of this group of patients.
  We would like to invite patients who are currently under the care of the renal young adult clinic at Salford Royal to take part in a focus group, where we hope to explore both the psychological impact of being a renal young adult patient and also how they feel their psychological needs would be best met. Taking part in the focus groups will be voluntary and if patients decide they would like to help us they will be offered the chance to join either an in person at Salford Royal or an online focus group, which will last between 1-1.5 hours. We hope to hold two focus groups in total, each with around 7-10 patients. After the focus groups have taken place, audio recordings of the focused will be typed up and analysed by the researchers. We will use our results to improve the service we offer, will also plan to share summaries of the results with patients and professional colleagues.

• REC name

  West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  23/WM/0096

• Date of REC Opinion

  10 May 2023

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion