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During the congress, E-Posters will be accessible to all participants on the congress website 24/7, as well as in the E-poster stations in the congress center.
Preparing your E-Poster
Please review the E-Poster format requirements carefully when preparing your E-Poster. Should your E-Poster not meet the mentioned requirements, it may not be displayed as described above.
E-Poster Submission Deadline
Please prepare and upload your E-Poster no later than March 14, 2026 11.59PM CET. After this date, you will no longer be able to prepare and upload your E-poster and it will not be displayed and accessible on the congress website.
Please follow the instructions below to input your abstract title.
Abstract titles should be brief and reflect the content of the abstract.
Older patients with kidney failure are required to make critical decisions regarding their treatments, primarily between dialysis or conservative kidney management (CKM). The experiences and factors that influence these treatment decision-making processes for such patients and their caregivers are not well understood. The CONTEND study sought to address this gap by exploring the experiences, preferences, enablers and barriers of decision-making among older patients with kidney failure and their caregivers.
CONTEND was a qualitative study conducted across 5 nephrology units in Australia from October 2020 to December 2024. Eligible participants were aged ≥70 years with kidney failure (estimated glomerular filtration rate ≤15 mL/min/1.73 m2) who had discussed treatment pathway options with their treating physician, either being undecided or having made a treatment pathway decision in the preceding two years. Primary caregivers of these patients were also eligible to participate. The study comprised single-encounter semi-structured interviews. These were conducted in person or virtually and were 30-60 minutes duration. Interviews with patients and caregivers were conducted separately. We derived pre-specified interview guides for patients and caregivers based on prior literature which were used to broadly structure interviews. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Inductive and deductive thematic analyses were performed to identify themes and relationships between themes.
A total of 18 interviews were undertaken, comprising 11 older patients and 7 caregivers. Patients had a mean age of 80.6 years, 73% (n=8) were male, and most lived with their partner (45%, n=5) or other relatives (36%, n=4). Caregivers had a mean age of 68 years, 57% (n=4) were male, and all were either partners (71%, n=5) or children (29%, n=2) of the corresponding older person with kidney failure. Four patients (36%) had made a decision for CKM as their kidney failure treatment pathway, and the remaining seven patients (64%) were yet to make a decision, with four of these patients leaning towards dialysis. Five key themes emerged regarding factors influencing treatment choices: (i) the impacts of advanced age, (ii) perceived burdens associated with dialysis, (iii) the role of clinical guidance and educational supports, (iv) family perspectives balanced with the importance of patient autonomy, and (v) the perceived impacts of complex co-existing health conditions.
Among older patients with kidney failure and their caregivers, the factors influencing treatment decision-making between kidney failure treatment pathways are broad, with decisions shaped by perceptions of age and anticipated treatment burdens, health expectations, clinical education and trust, the influence of significant others, and the constraints of multi-morbidity. Decision-making was embedded in social contexts and life course narratives. These findings highlight the need for tailored supports and resources to assist older patients and their caregivers in effectively balancing these considerations and navigating complex shared decision-making processes for the management of kidney failure.
