The UNPACK study: Phase 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The UNPACK study: Understanding treatment preferences of older Patients and their families deciding between dialysis and comprehensive conservative Care for Kidney failure (Phase 1)
IRAS ID
245309
Contact name
Barnaby Hole
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
The UNPACK study: Understanding the treatment preferences of older Patients and their families when deciding between dialysis and comprehensive conservative Care for Kidney failure
Individuals approaching kidney failure must choose between transplantation, dialysis, and non-dialysis care (also known as ‘comprehensive conservative care’ - CCC). Older people are rarely medically suitable for transplantation and are more likely to choose CCC than younger people. This may be because they don’t want intrusive treatment and are willing to live shorter lives to avoid it. Dialysis is particularly burdensome for them, with marginal survival benefit. Family members are also involved in decision-making, but may be less willing to consider reduced survival to reduce treatment burden. The trade-offs that older UK patients and their family members are prepared to make have never been quantified. The UNPACK study will characterise and compare preferences of older patients and their family members deciding between dialysis or CCC. It will develop a discrete choice experiment where hypothetical scenarios are used to elicit, quantify and rank treatment preferences.
This application is for the first stage of this research which will involve interviews with older patients who have kidney disease and their family members to:
• Build an in-depth understanding of how decisions between dialysis and CCC are made
• Identify concepts that have not yet been reported in existing literature
• Establish ‘attributes’ (important health outcomes and treatment aspects, such as treatment frequency) and ‘levels’ (values these attributes can take, such as weekly, fortnightly, etc.) for the choice experiment
• Explore how well older people with advanced chronic kidney disease comprehend an example discrete choice experiment, in order to inform the development of the next stage of this study.REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/1179
Date of REC Opinion
2 Aug 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion