Supported Research

Lay Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a very difficult process and experience for so many. It has been especially tough for people with kidney disease, their families and support systems, and for health care providers. Unfortunately, we don’t know too much about how the pandemic was felt by patients, families or health care providers. More information is needed to guide leaders so that they can ensure optimal quality care in a pandemic or other disasters. This study will seek to add knowledge to guide decision makers by asking patients and family supporters about their experiences in the COVID-19 pandemic. We also will ask health care providers for their thoughts about the impact of the pandemic on care provided to patients. We will engage 60 patients across ages and types of kidney care received, 60 family helpers or informal supporters, and 50 health care providers in kidney care programs. In interviews, we’ll ask these people about the impacts of the pandemic on kidney care and how they have fared both during and toward the end of (or after) the pandemic. Their insights will guide ways to improve care during a pandemic. We will include people across two provinces (Alberta and Ontario) and include individual differences among patients/families in income and type of kidney treatment received as well as other areas of individual differences. We will also interview health care providers in different kidney care roles like social workers, nurses, physicians, dieticians, respiratory therapists, and others. We expect that this information will help us understand pandemic-related issues in care delivery and ways to improve care in a pandemic. Finally, we will look at the guiding policies in kidney care, including ways care was provided. We will compare this information with how patients, family caregivers/supporters and health care providers fared in the pandemic, including at different stages of the pandemic. We will specifically look at how the pandemic influenced how well patients, families and health care providers were doing personally. We further will look at government and other policies related to kidney care through reviewing the internet to ask questions about how social distancing, organ donation and transplantation changes, hospital visitation rules, and other pandemic changes, unfolded and were felt by those people involved in renal care. With all these steps, the study will give important information to help to improve kidney care in a pandemic or other disasters in our world.