A Randomised controlled trial of a decision support intervention to support decision making for older individuals with advanced kidney disease

This research evaluated the effectiveness of a decision support intervention to guide older people who have advanced stages of kidney disease in making treatment choices about dialysis or conservative treatment. A pragmatic randomised controlled trial was conducted to determine if the intervention lowered decision conflict and decision regret. The research found that the decision support intervention increased participants’ knowledge of risk, benefits and symptoms of dialysis. There were no observable differences between groups for decision conflict or decision regret. The research raises issues about fully informed patient choice in end of life care and lays the foundation for ongoing research