Exploring Medication Adherence in Kidney Transplant Recipients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring Immunosuppressant Medication Adherence in Kidney Transplant Recipients
IRAS ID
208878
Contact name
Dawn Goodall
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Compliance Office, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 18 days
Research summary
Organs for transplantation remain a scarce and precious resource with over 5000 patients currently on the kidney transplant waiting list. A kidney transplant costs approximately £17,000 in the first year and £5,000 per subsequent year. If the transplant fails, the patient must return to dialysis at an estimated cost of £30,800 per year. While short term outcomes have improved steadily over the last 15-20 years, longer term outcomes haven’t and after 10 years approximately 30% of kidney transplants have failed. Nonadherence to anti-rejection medication is increasingly being associated with these poor long term outcomes and it has been estimated that up to a half of kidney transplant patients do not take their anti-rejection medicines as prescribed.
We want to understand more about why some of our kidney transplant patients find it difficult to take their anti-rejection medicines as intended. It is hoped that if we can improve our understanding of why some patients struggle with their anti-rejection medicines, we will be able to find better ways to help our transplant patients and so fewer patients may develop problems with their transplant.
This study will collect qualitative data from a series of focus groups with kidney transplant recipients to explore their beliefs, understanding and experience of anti-rejection medication adherence. The focus groups will also explore the support that participants have received to help them with their medication adherence and what support they feel should be available to them and to others in the future to optimise anti-rejection medication adherence in transplant patients.
Five focus groups will be undertaken. Each focus group will include six patients and will last for approximately 1.5 hours. All participants will be kidney transplant recipients transplanted and followed up at Imperial College Renal and Transplant Centre. The study is funded by the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.REC name
West Midlands - Edgbaston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0026
Date of REC Opinion
1 Feb 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion