According to a speaker at the Virtual Annual Dialysis Conference, using decision aids before discussing treatment options gives patients with chronic kidney disease hope and improves patients' motivation to seek treatment for the disease.
"I want you to see that a diagnosis of anything scary, including kidney failure, is a personal tsunami. It's something that shakes the very foundations of your life. It washes away everything that you know, your Changes all perspectives. So, this is A. This is the drug that I think US healthcare in general doesn't really do very well,” said Dori Schatell, MS, of the Institute of Medical Education. “If we If we want to make shared decisions, we have to overcome past fears."
"ASHA improves health-related quality of life and improves health-related quality of life predicts hospitalization and death. This means that ASHA is literally life-and-death likely," Schatell said. "People who are hopeful have better mental functioning. This is one aspect of health-related quality of life."
Schatell said that physicians identify hope as an action that their patients can still do during treatment. For example, if patients enjoyed a certain hobby, he told them that with treatment they could continue to participate in that hobby. He said that once patients have the hope that they will be able to continue doing the things they love in life, they will be more inclined to learn about their disease. As a result, a treatment option can then be made.
Decision aids can be helpful when identifying patient values, and Schatell explains a tool nephrologists can use before negotiating treatment choice.
Created by the medical educational institute, My Life, My Dialysis Choice is a free online tool written at the reading level of fifth grade to help patients determine their values and which treatment options best fit those values. good support. After logging into the website, patients select three values from a list of lifestyle and health values. The tool will automatically show treatment plans that match the chosen values.
"Matching people's choices with their values and their goals matters because that's what hope looks like. And you can help people do that," Scatel said. "We've already done all the heavy lifting and all the matching. All you have to do is give them the equipment and help them use it."
Scatel plans to release an updated book and online tool called My Kidney Life Plan that accomplishes the same goals as Online My Life, My Dialysis Choice, but is more user-friendly. Free and updated tools include implants and comfort care as treatment options. My Kidney Life Plan will go live in April.