Early Phosphate Intervention - Mixed Methods Study

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Early Phosphate Intervention Mixed Methods Study: An exploration of the perspective of children, parents and key health care professionals towards the development of an early dietary phosphate self-management strategy to delay disease progression in children with Chronic Kidney Disease stage 1-3, within a managed paediatric renal network

• IRAS ID

  215520

• Contact name

  Gina Higginbottom

• Contact email

  gina.higginbottom@nottingham.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Nottingham

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 9 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), in particular dialysis, costs the NHS a lot of money. When kidneys are not working well some of the body salts start to increase. Phosphate is an important body salt. If phosphate is poorly controlled it can cause many problems, such as damage to heart vessels, poor growth, and speed up kidney damage and cause death.
  Chronic Kidney Disease is described by how well the kidneys are working; Stage 1 is mild kidney function and 5 is the most severe, when dialysis is required. During Stage 2 CKD, certain body salts and hormones (chemical substances which act like messengers) start to rise. Blood phosphate levels may show up as normal on a blood test at this stage, however they will be starting to rise soon. Reducing the amount of dietary phosphate will help to reduce bone hormones and keep the blood phosphate down.
  Children’s kidney dietitians provide expert dietary phosphate advice to children and their families. The children’s kidney doctor would see the child every 6-12 months. However, there is little medical research that refers to children’s kidney dietitians seeing these children at Stage 1-2 CKD. They are normally asked to offer specialist advice when the blood phosphate shows up on a blood test as moderately high; this is usually at Stage 4-5 CKD. By leaving it this late before offering dietary intervention may be speeding up the damage to the kidneys.
  Medical research has not explored the child, parent’s or healthcare professionals perspective towards the development of an early dietary phosphate self-management strategy for children with CKD 1-3. This study seeks to explore these perspectives using a systematic review, interviews and an online survey (Delphi). The results will help with future improvements in dietary phosphate management in CKD.

• REC name

  East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  17/EM/0418

• Date of REC Opinion

  17 Jan 2018

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion