Decisional Conflict About Kidney Failure Treatment Modalities Among Adults With Advanced CKD.

RATIONALE & OBJECTIVE: Choosing from multiple kidney failure treatment modalities can create decisional conflict, but little is known about this experience before decision implementation. We explored decisional conflict about treatment for kidney failure and its associated patient characteristics in the context of advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD).

STUDY DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING & PARTICIPANTS: Adults (N = 427) who had advanced CKD, received nephrology care in Pennsylvania-based clinics, and had no history of dialysis or transplantation.

PREDICTORS

Participants' sociodemographic, physical health, nephrology care/knowledge, and psychosocial characteristics.

OUTCOMES

Participants' results on the Sure of myself; Understand information; Risk-benefit ratio; Encouragement (SURE) screening test for decisional conflict (no decisional conflict vs decisional conflict).

ANALYTICAL APPROACH

We used multivariable logistic regression to quantify associations between aforementioned participant characteristics and decisional conflict. We repeated analyses among a subgroup of participants at highest risk of kidney failure within 2 years.

RESULTS

Most (76%) participants reported treatment-related decisional conflict. Participant characteristics associated with lower odds of decisional conflict included complete satisfaction with patient-kidney team treatment discussions (OR, 0.16; 95% CI, 0.03-0.88;  = 0.04), attendance of treatment education classes (OR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.16-0.90;  = 0.03), and greater treatment-related decision self-efficacy (OR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.94-0.99;  < 0.01). Sensitivity analyses showed a similarly high prevalence of decisional conflict (73%) and again demonstrated associations of class attendance (OR, 0.26; 95% CI, 0.07-0.96;  = 0.04) and decision self-efficacy (OR, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.91-0.99;  = 0.03) with decisional conflict.

LIMITATIONS

Single-health system study.

CONCLUSIONS

Decisional conflict was highly prevalent regardless of CKD progression risk. Findings suggest efforts to reduce decisional conflict should focus on minimizing the mismatch between clinical practice guidelines and patient-reported engagement in treatment preparation, facilitating patient-kidney team treatment discussions, and developing treatment education programs and decision support interventions that incorporate decision self-efficacy-enhancing strategies.