Identifying important outcomes for young people with CKD and their caregivers : A nominal group technique study

Rationale & Objective
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) has wide-ranging and long-term consequences for young people and their families. The omission of outcomes that are important to young people with CKD and their caregivers limits knowledge to guide shared decision making. We aimed to identify the outcomes that are important to young people with CKD and their caregivers.

Study Design
We used the nominal group technique whereby participants identified and ranked outcomes and explained their priorities.

Settings & Participants
Young people with CKD (stages 1-5, dialysis, or transplantation) and their caregivers were purposively sampled from 6 centers across Australia, the United States, and Canada.

Analytical Approach
Importance scores were calculated (scale of 0-1), and qualitative data were analyzed thematically.

Results
34 patients (aged 8-21 years) and 62 caregivers participated in 16 groups and identified 48 outcomes. The 5 highest ranked outcomes for patients were survival (importance score, 0.25), physical activity (0.24), fatigue (0.20), lifestyle restrictions (0.20), and growth (0.20); and for caregivers, kidney function (0.53), survival (0.28), infection (0.22), anemia (0.20), and growth (0.17). 12 themes were identified reflecting their immediate and current priorities (wanting to feel normal, strengthening resilience, minimizing intrusion into daily life, imminent threats to life, devastating family burdens, and seeking control over health) and considerations regarding future impacts (protecting health/development, remaining hopeful, concern for limited opportunities, prognostic uncertainty, dreading painful and invasive procedures, and managing expectations).

Limitations
Only English-speaking participants were recruited.

Conclusions
Kidney function, infection, survival, and growth were the highest priorities for patients with CKD and their caregivers. Young people with CKD also prioritized highly the outcomes that directly affected their lifestyle and sense of normality, while caregiver’s highest priorities concerned the long-term health of their child, current health problems, and the financial and family burdens of caring for a child with CKD.

© 2019 by the National Kidney Foundation, Inc.