Health Professional–Identified Barriers to Living Donor Kidney Transplantation: A Qualitative Study

Background:Living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) has several advantages over deceased donor kidney transplantation. Yet rates of living donation are declining in Canada and there exists significant interprovincial variability. Efforts to improve living donation tend to focus on the patient and barriers identified at their level, such as not knowing how to ask for a kidney or lack of education. These efforts favor those who have the means and the support to find living donors. Thus, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-organized workshop recommended that education efforts to understand and remove barriers should focus on health professionals (HPs). Despite this, little attention has been paid to what they identify as barriers to discussing LDKT with their patients.Objective:Our aim was to explore HP-identified barriers to discuss living donation with patients in 3 provinces of Canada with low (Quebec), moderate (Ontario), and high (British Columbia) rates of LDKT.Design:This study consists ...