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

Funded by the Canberra Health Services Private Practice Fund ($AUD 49,815) clinicians from the Renal Outpatients Clinic at the Canberra Hospital in collaboration with researchers from the Institute for Communication in Health Care aim to explore the most effective way 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 and patients already receiving dialysis treatment. To this end we will capture 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 the 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 collection for the project is set to start in the second half of 2020. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2021.