Experiences of kidney transplantation for recipients in regional, rural, and remote Queensland – exploring the trials and tribulations
Watters, Tara K., Glass, Beverley D., Scholes-Robertson, Nicole J., and Mallett, Andrew J. (2025) Experiences of kidney transplantation for recipients in regional, rural, and remote Queensland – exploring the trials and tribulations. BMC Nephrology, 26 (1). 485.
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Abstract
Background: People with kidney failure, unable to access kidney transplantation are disadvantaged in terms of their quality of life and overall survival. Despite this, regional, rural, and remote populations worldwide remain less likely to receive a kidney transplant and often experience unique difficulties throughout their transplant journey. This study aimed to explore the experiences of these kidney transplant recipients, including around current transplant processes to understand barriers to access for regional, rural, and remote populations. Methods: Focus group discussions were conducted either in-person or online with kidney transplant recipients from regional, rural, and remote areas of northern Queensland. Transcripts were analysed thematically with emerging themes mapped against constructs of Levesque’s patient-centred healthcare access framework. Results: Focus group participants (n = 30) included both deceased (90%) and living (10%) donor transplant recipients, with almost a third (30%) of which resided in rural or remote areas. Six themes were identified relating to access to kidney transplantation: facing hurdles to transplant assessment, insufficient communication and education, permeating psychosocial hazards, repercussions of distance, overwhelming financial strain, and troubling long-term adversities. Conclusions: Kidney transplant recipients from regional, rural, and remote areas of northern Queensland described significant barriers throughout their transplantation journey. These relate primary to their geographical distance from specialty kidney transplant services and the subsequent logistic, financial, and psychosocial challenges that arise. Clinical trial registration: This study was not a clinical trial.
| Item ID: | 87723 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1471-2369 |
| Keywords: | Chronic kidney disease, Health equity, Indigenous health, Kidney failure, Kidney transplant, Rural and remote health |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Jan 2026 07:03 |
| FoR Codes: | 32 BIOMEDICAL AND CLINICAL SCIENCES > 3202 Clinical sciences > 320214 Nephrology and urology @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 20 HEALTH > 2001 Clinical health > 200105 Treatment of human diseases and conditions @ 100% |
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