Decisional needs in people with kidney failure, their relatives, and health professionals about end-of-life care options: a qualitative interview study.

Aim

To investigate the decisional needs in Denmark of people with kidney failure, relatives, and health professionals when planning end-of-life care.

Design

A qualitative interview study.

Methods

Individual semi-structured interviews were carried out with people with kidney failure, relatives and health professionals from November 2021 to June 2022. Malterud's systematic text condensation was used to analyse transcripts.

Results

A total of 13 patients, 10 relatives, and 12 health professionals were interviewed. Overall, four concepts were agreed on: (1) Talking about end of life is difficult, (2) Patients and relatives need more knowledge and information, (3) Health professionals need more tools and training, and (4) Experiencing busyness as a barrier to conversations about end of life.

Conclusion

People with kidney failure, relatives, and health professionals shared certain decisional needs while also having some different decisional needs about end-of-life care. To meet these various needs, end-of-life conversations should be systematic and organized according to the patients' needs and wishes.

Impact

Non-systematic end-of-life care decision-making processes limit patients' involvement. Patients and relatives need more knowledge about end-of-life care, and health professionals need more competences and time to discuss decisional needs. A shared decision-making intervention for people with kidney failure when making end-of-life care decisions will be developed.

Reporting Method

This empirical qualitative research is reported according to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) checklist.

Patient or Public Contribution

Patients, relatives, and health professionals have been involved throughout the research process as part of the research team and advisory board. The patients are people with kidney failure and the relatives are relatives of a person with kidney failure. For this study, the advisory board has particularly contributed to the validation of the invitation letter for participation, the interview guides and the preparation of the manuscript.