Improving consent procedures and shared decision making for dialysis consumers

About the project

Around 13,000 Australians are currently receiving dialysis, but informed consent procedures for dialysis have received limited attention.

Funded by the Canberra Health Services Private Practice Fund, clinicians from the Renal Outpatients Clinic at the Canberra Hospital and researchers from ICH aim to explore the most effective ways to enhance collaborative education, decision-making and consent practices in dialysis.

Through this project, we seek to determine best practice communication to enhance patient involvement and shared decision-making in consent discussions for patients considering dialysis as a potential treatment, as well as for patients already receiving dialysis treatment.

To this end we captured clinician and patient perspectives in interviews, and collect and analyse authentic interactions between clinicians and patients. We will conduct a detailed analysis of clinicians' and patients’ views at different stages of dialysis, and a linguistic analysis of communication practices in educational sessions, consultations and during dialysis.

Specifically, the project will identify ways in which clinicians can improve their communicative practices during consent discussions.

Findings from this translational research project will inform the development of evidence-based policies, guidelines and practical communication strategies to help achieve more effective and collaborative education and decision-making, and to develop more rigorous and valid consent procedures for dialysis.

The data for this project was collected from September 2020 to February 2021. Preliminary analyses and a draft report including suggestions for improvement have been prepared in collaborative discussion with the clinicians from the Renal Outpatients Clinic at the Canberra Hospital.