The views expressed in this commentary are solely the responsibility of the authors and they do not necessarily reflect the views, decisions, or policies of the institutions with which they are affiliated.
T he prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and its risk factors is increasing worldwide, and there is a rapid rise in global need for the treatment of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). The global nephrology community recognizes the need for a plan to address the growing incidence of CKD and a cohesive approach for CKD/ESKD integrated care. 1 This provides a major challenge for health systems, particularly
Prevention and early detection of kidney diseases in adults and children should be a priority for any government health department. This is particularly pertinent in the lowmiddle-income countries, mostly in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, where up to 7 million people die because of lack of end-stage kidney disease treatment. The nephrology workforce (nurses, technicians, and doctors) is limited in these countries and expanding the size and expertise of the workforce is essential to permit expansion of treatment for both chronic kidney disease and end-stage kidney disease. To achieve this will require sustained action and commitment from governments, academic medical centers, local nephrology societies, and the international nephrology community.
IntroductionChronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major threat to public health, especially in low-income and lower middle-income countries, where resources for treating patients with advanced CKD are scarce. Although early CKD identification and intervention hold promise for reducing the burden of CKD and risk factors, it remains unclear if an uniform strategy can be applicable across all income groups. The aim of this scoping review is to synthesise available evidence on early CKD identification programmes in all world regions and income groups. The study will also identify efforts that have been made to use interventions and implementation of early identification programmes for CKD across countries and income groups.Methods and analysisThis review will be guided by the methodological framework for conducting scoping studies developed by Arksey and O’Malley. Empirical (Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, ISI Web of Science and PsycINFO) and grey literature references will be searched to identify studies on CKD screening, early identification and interventions across all populations. Two reviewers will independently screen references in consecutive stages of title/abstract screening and then full-text screening. We will use a general descriptive overview, tabular summaries and content analysis on extracted data.Ethics and disseminationThe findings from our planned scoping review will enable us to identify items in early identification programmes that can be used in developing screening toolkits for CKD. We will disseminate our findings using traditional approaches that include open-access peer-reviewed publication, scientific presentations and a white paper (call to action) report. Ethical approval will not be required for this scoping review as the data will be extracted from already published studies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.