Waitlisted and Transplant Patient Perspectives on Expanding Access to Deceased-Donor Kidney Transplant: A Qualitative Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: A concerning number of kidneys (eg, expanded donor criteria, extended criteria, or marginal kidneys) are discarded yearly while patients experience significant morbidity and mortality on the transplant waitlist. Novel solutions are needed to solve the shortage of kidneys available for transplant. Patient perceptions regarding the use of these less than ideal kidneys remain unexplored. Objective: To explore the perspectives of patients who have previously received a less than ideal kidney in the past and patients awaiting transplant who could potentially benefit from one. Design: Qualitative description study. Setting: 2 provinces in Canada participated (Saskatchewan and Manitoba). Patients: Patients with end-stage kidney disease who were awaiting kidney transplant and were either (a) aged 65 years and older, or (b) 55 years and older with other medical conditions (eg, diabetes). Methods: Criterion sampling was used to identify participants. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted virtually, which explored perceived quality of life, perceptions of less than ideal kidneys, risk tolerance for accepting one, and educational needs to make such a choice. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: 15 interviews were conducted with usable data (n = 10 pretransplant; n = 5 posttransplant). Participants were a mean of 65.5 ± 8.8 years old. Four interrelated themes became prominent including (1) patient awareness and understanding of their situation or context, (2) a desire for information, (3) a desire for freedom from dialysis, and (4) trust. Subthemes of transparency, clarity, standardization, and autonomy were deemed important for participant education. The majority of pretransplant participants (n = 8/10) indicated that between 3 and 5 years off of dialysis would make the risk of accepting a less than ideal kidney feel worthwhile. Limitation: The study setting was limited to 2 Canadian provinces, which limits the generalizability. Furthermore, the participants were homogenous in demographics such as ethnicity. Conclusion: These findings indicate that patients are comfortable to accept a less than ideal kidney for transplant in situations where their autonomy is respected, they are provided clear, standardized, and transparent information, and when they trust their physician. These results will be used to inform the development of a new national registry for expanding access to deceased-donor kidney transplant. Trial Registration: Not registered.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.012 | 0.016 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".