Decision aids to assist patients and professionals in choosing the right treatment for kidney failure.

Background: Kidney services vary in the way they involve people with kidney failure (PwKF) in treatment decisions as management needs change. We discuss how decision-science applications support proactively PwKF to make informed decisions between treatment options with kidney professionals.

Methods: A conceptual review of findings about decision making and use of decision aids in kidney services, synthesized with reference to: the Making Informed Decisions-Individually and Together (MIND-IT) multiple stakeholder decision makers framework; and the Medical Research Council-Complex Intervention Development and Evaluation research framework.

Results: This schema represents the different types of decision aids that support PwKF and professional reasoning as they manage kidney disease individually and together; adjustments at micro, meso and macro levels supports integration in practice.

Conclusion: Innovating services to meet clinical guidelines on enhancing shared decision making processes means enabling all stakeholders to use decision aids to meet their goals within kidney pathways at individual, service and organizational levels.