Authors
Susan P Y Wong, Olivia Gaughran, David K Prince, Jane Schell, Daniel Y Lam, Dawn Bates, Grady Paden, Erin K Kross
Published in
Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN. Sep 03, 2026. Epub Sep 03, 2026.
Abstract
It is difficult for patients to make informed decisions about kidney failure unless they know all their treatment options. Conservative management is an important option infrequently presented alongside other kidney failure treatments by nephrologists.
We conducted a randomized pilot trial testing the feasibility and acceptability of a communication tool, called Conservative Kidney Management Jumpstart Tool, in assisting nephrologists with discussing conservative management with their patients. We recruited patients aged ≥75 years with stage 4 or 5 chronic kidney disease in the greater Seattle area between April 2023-May 2025. Patients were randomized in 1:1 fashion to either their nephrologists receiving the Tool to use with them at their next clinic visit (intervention) or usual care (control). Our primary outcome and feasibility measure was patient-reported discussion of conservative management during the clinic visit. Our secondary outcome and acceptability measure was change in patients' satisfaction with their nephrologist's serious illness communication skills (using the Quality of Communication Scale, with higher scores indicating higher quality) before and after the visit. We performed an intent-to-treat analysis of the primary endpoint using a chi-square test. We used paired-samples t-tests to assess within-patient changes in the secondary endpoint.
We randomized 74 patients (age 80±1, 19% women, 69% White) to either the control (n=37) or intervention (n=37) group. Patients whose nephrologists received the Tool were more likely to discuss conservative management during their clinic visit (60% vs. 19%, p=0.001) than patients in the control group. Patients whose nephrologists received the Tool rated their nephrologist's communication skills at 7.5±2.1 before the visit and 9.0±1.7 after the visit (p<0.001) as compared with 7.8±1.9 and 7.9±1.8 (p=0.54), respectively, among patients in the control group.
The Tool was feasible and acceptable to patients, promoting patient-nephrologist discussion of conservative management and improving patients' satisfaction with their nephrologist's communication skills.
PMID:
42690921
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 04 Sep 2026.
Read full publication at:
Please sign in
to see all details.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 9
- Comments 0