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Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 4ASKNCT07221604

The Agenda-Setting for Kidney Disease Open Pilot Trial

A study testing Chronic Kidney Disease Structured Agenda-Setting Tool in people with Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 4, run by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center at 2 sites in United States.

Recruiting

Looking for participants now. Contact the study team or a site below to ask about taking part.

Sites and contacts
Official record
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Trial summary

The goal of this open pilot is to practice using an intervention and surveys before a larger pilot stepped wedge clinical trial. The intervention the researchers plan to use is Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Topics, and it is a structured clinical agenda-setting intervention (SAS), or a customized list of discussion… Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 18 years and older
Conditions the study is for
Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 4
What is being tested?
Chronic Kidney Disease Structured Agenda-Setting Tool
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
30 participants
Where
2 sitesUnited States
Study dates
19 May 2026to Sep 2026
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 18 years and older
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • Adults >18 years old who have been diagnosed with advanced CKD (stages 4-5).
  • Care partners, clinicians and staff supporting these CKD patients who are willing and able to provide informed consent
  • English-speaking
  • Able to provide informed consent
  • Patient must be attending outpatient visits *(in-person and/or telehealth allowable).

Who cannot join

  • Children under 18 years old will not be included
  • Non-English-speaking patients and/or care partners
  • Patients on dialysis
  • Individuals unable or unwilling to provide informed consent

Trial locations and contacts

2 sites in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.

Catherine H. Saunders, Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Health Policy, PhD, MPH contact

603-653-3436

Catherine.Hylas.Saunders@dartmouth.edu

Anne E. Dade, Research Associate, MPP contact

anne.e.dade@dartmouth.edu

United States2 sites, 2 recruiting
  • Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock

    Keene, New Hampshire, 03431

    Maryam Gul, MD, 603-354-6622, mgul@cheshire-med.com

    Recruiting
  • Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center

    Lebanon, New Hampshire, 03766

    Not yet recruiting

Other trials in United States

About this study

Official title: Setting the Agenda: An Open Pilot of a Structured Clinical Visit Agenda-Setting Intervention for Rural-Residing People With Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease

The goal of this open pilot is to practice using an intervention and surveys before a larger pilot stepped wedge clinical trial. The intervention the researchers plan to use is Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Topics, and it is a structured clinical agenda-setting intervention (SAS), or a customized list of discussion topics. The people the researchers are practicing using the SAS with have advanced CKD (stages 4-5), and many of them live in rural areas. The researchers will practice administering CKD Topics, along with survey questions. By doing the open pilot, the researchers will learn if they need to modify the steps they plan to take in the larger trial.

The main questions the researchers aim to answer are:

  • Do the steps for identifying eligible participants work?
  • Do the steps for administering CKD Topics work?
  • Do the steps to administer survey questions work?
Read the detailed description

In this open pilot, the researchers will administer a novel structured agenda-setting tool (SAS) called Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Topics. The researchers will determine if their procedures for screening eligible participants, administering the intervention, and administering outcome and other questionnaires are appropriate. Learnings from the open pilot will feed forward into procedures in a larger planned pilot stepped wedge feasibility trial.

This study only has one arm, the intervention arm. The intervention, CKD Topics, will be administered as a quality improvement intervention.

Future Directions: This open pilot will inform procedural changes in an upcoming pilot stepped wedge feasibility trial.

Being tested
Chronic Kidney Disease Structured Agenda-Setting Tool
Keywords
Chronic kidney disease, Chronic kidney disease stage 4, Chronic kidney disease stage 5, Agenda-setting, Patient engagement, Rural, Participatory research, Open pilot
Medical subject headings
Renal Insufficiency, Chronic, Patient Participation

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • Chronic Kidney Disease Structured Agenda-Setting ToolBehavioural

    Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Topics is a novel clinical visit agenda-setting intervention developed through participatory research methods for people with CKD living in rural areas. CKD Topics includes 8 structured discussion topic areas with the option for patients to consider and indicate their priority topic areas and take notes before, during, and after a clinical visit.

Study groups in NCT07221604
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Arm 1 is Clinical Visit Agenda Setting Tool InterventionExperimentalThe study team will implement a structured clinical visit agenda-setting (SAS) intervention customized for advanced chronic kidney disease, called Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) Topics.
Receives: Behavioral: Chronic Kidney Disease Structured Agenda-Setting Tool

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Primary Feasibility Outcome: Intervention receipt

    Our primary outcome will be feasibility, assessed by the proportion of patients who received the intervention.

    Measured: Day 1

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted28 Oct 2025
  2. Study start19 May 2026
  3. Primary completionAug 2026 (estimated)
  4. Study completionSep 2026 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Health services research
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Model description
Open feasibility pilot trial
Masking
None (open label)
Enrolment
30 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT07221604
Sponsor's protocol ID
STUDY02002598_2
Other IDs
1K01DK139400
Acronym
ASK
Status last verified
Jul 2026
First submitted
18 Jun 2025
Last updated
23 Jul 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
No: The study will use standard processing and documentation protocols adopted by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) for data formats, dictionaries, variable names, descriptions, and labels. An XML schema using Data Documenting Initiative standards will also be used for codebooks and other metadata as appropriate. The researchers will share RCT process and outcomes data in CSV files via openICPSR, which is a self-publishing repository for social, behavioral and health science data and part of the ICPSR.

Publications

  • Brashers DE, Haas SM, Neidig JL. The patient self-advocacy scale: measuring patient involvement in health care decision-making interactions. Health Commun. 1999;11(2):97-121. doi: 10.1207/s15327027hc1102_1.

    PubMed 16370972
  • Clayman ML, Pandit AU, Bergeron AR, Cameron KA, Ross E, Wolf MS. Ask, understand, remember: a brief measure of patient communication self-efficacy within clinical encounters. J Health Commun. 2010;15 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):72-9. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2010.500349.

    PubMed 20845194
  • Frankel RM, Salyers MP, Bonfils KA, Oles SK, Matthias MS. Agenda setting in psychiatric consultations: an exploratory study. Psychiatr Rehabil J. 2013 Sep;36(3):195-201. doi: 10.1037/prj0000004. Epub 2013 Jul 1.

    PubMed 23815174
  • Gramling R, Stanek S, Ladwig S, Gajary-Coots E, Cimino J, Anderson W, Norton SA; AAHPM Research Committee Writing Group; Aslakson RA, Ast K, Elk R, Garner KK, Gramling R, Grudzen C, Kamal AH, Lamba S, LeBlanc TW, Rhodes RL, Roeland E, Schulman-Green D, Unroe KT. Feeling Heard and Understood: A Patient-Reported Quality Measure for the Inpatient Palliative Care Setting. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2016 Feb;51(2):150-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.10.018. Epub 2015 Nov 17.

    PubMed 26596879
  • Hemming K, Haines TP, Chilton PJ, Girling AJ, Lilford RJ. The stepped wedge cluster randomised trial: rationale, design, analysis, and reporting. BMJ. 2015 Feb 6;350:h391. doi: 10.1136/bmj.h391. No abstract available.

    PubMed 25662947
  • Makoul G, Krupat E, Chang CH. Measuring patient views of physician communication skills: development and testing of the Communication Assessment Tool. Patient Educ Couns. 2007 Aug;67(3):333-42. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2007.05.005. Epub 2007 Jun 18.

    PubMed 17574367
  • Saunders CH, Durand MA, Kirkland KB, MacMartin MA, Barnato AE, Elwyn G. Psychometric assessment of the consideRATE questions, a new measure of serious illness experience, with an online simulation study. Patient Educ Couns. 2022 Jul;105(7):2581-2589. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2022.01.002. Epub 2022 Jan 22.

    PubMed 35260261
  • Saunders CH, Durand MA, Scalia P, Kirkland KB, MacMartin MA, Barnato AE, Milne DW, Collison J, Bennett A, Wasp G, Nelson E, Elwyn G. "It helps us say what's important..." Developing Serious Illness Topics: A clinical visit agenda-setting tool. Patient Educ Couns. 2023 Aug;113:107764. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2023.107764. Epub 2023 Apr 18.

    PubMed 37150152
  • Saunders CH, Durand MA, Scalia P, Kirkland KB, MacMartin MA, Barnato AE, Milne DW, Collison J, Jaggars A, Butt T, Wasp G, Nelson E, Elwyn G. User-Centered Design of the consideRATE Questions, a Measure of People's Experiences When They Are Seriously Ill. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2021 Mar;61(3):555-565.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.08.002. Epub 2020 Aug 16.

    PubMed 32814165
  • Sierpe A, Yen RW, Stevens G, Van Citters AD, Elwyn G, Saunders CH. Agenda-setting in the clinical encounter: A systematic review protocol. PLoS One. 2024 Oct 24;19(10):e0312613. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312613. eCollection 2024.

    PubMed 39446854
  • Weiner BJ, Lewis CC, Stanick C, Powell BJ, Dorsey CN, Clary AS, Boynton MH, Halko H. Psychometric assessment of three newly developed implementation outcome measures. Implement Sci. 2017 Aug 29;12(1):108. doi: 10.1186/s13012-017-0635-3.

    PubMed 28851459
  • Wild MG, Wallston KA, Green JA, Beach LB, Umeukeje E, Wright Nunes JA, Ikizler TA, Steed J, Cavanaugh KL. The Perceived Medical Condition Self-Management Scale can be applied to patients with chronic kidney disease. Kidney Int. 2017 Oct;92(4):972-978. doi: 10.1016/j.kint.2017.03.018. Epub 2017 May 18.

    PubMed 28528132

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing Chronic Kidney Disease Structured Agenda-Setting Tool in people with Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 4, run by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center at 2 sites in United States.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 5 inclusion and 4 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 23 Jul 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 2 sites in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

Contact Catherine H. Saunders, Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Health Policy, PhD, MPH (603-653-3436, Catherine.Hylas.Saunders@dartmouth.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Primary Feasibility Outcome: Intervention receipt (time frame: Day 1). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT07221604, which also lists 12 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 23 Jul 2026.

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