ArticleBMC nephrology2025
Kidney-therapy decision-making among older adults and caregivers: treatment beliefs, prognostic information, and health priorities.
Article in BMC nephrology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIt is critical to ensure that older patients and families understand the risks and benefits of each available treatment option when contemplating kidney therapy (KT) decisions. This study investigates older patients’ and caregivers’ beliefs regarding chronic kidney disease (CKD) curability, anticipated quality of life (QoL) with dialysis, trade-offs between longevity and QoL, frequency of prognostic discussions and views on remaining life expectancy.
methodsWe conducted secondary analyses of orally administered questionnaire-based data collected in two intervention studies aimed at improving KT decision-making for older adults with advanced CKD.
resultsWe present descriptive statistics to summarize findings. Among 118 patients (mean age 79 years) and 60 caregivers (mean age 68 years), 54% patients and 75% caregivers were women, with 75% patients and 79% caregivers identifying as White. When asked about their CKD curability, nearly 35% patients and 15% caregivers did not know or were unsure, while 10% patients and 12% caregivers expressed optimism. Participants generally lacked clarity on dialysis’s impact on QoL. Furthermore, most participants (85% patients and 92% caregivers) did not have prognostic discussions about life expectancy with their nephrologists and were either uncertain or optimistic about future 1 and 2-year survival rates. Many participants prioritized QoL—functional status (45% vs. 48%), reduced suffering (70% vs. 24%), and fewer hospitalizations (48% vs. 45%)—over choosing dialysis.
conclusionInaccurate beliefs about CKD curability, the benefits of KT options, lack of prognostic discussions and prognostic uncertainty are common among older adults and caregivers facing treatment decisions, highlighting the need for educational interventions for nephrologists, patients and families.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.