Symptom Management: Your Symptoms Matter
People living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) can have frequent and severe symptoms while they are on dialysis. Systematic screening, assessment and management of symptoms is an important part of a patient’s routine care.
Your Symptoms Matter is a quick questionnaire for people receiving dialysis. It helps patients tell their healthcare teams about their symptoms and how they are feeling. Using Your Symptoms Matter may improve communication between a patient and their healthcare providers, and improve the patient’s experience with dialysis care.
Purpose
We work to improve patient-provider communication and quality of life for people living with chronic kidney disease by implementing an organized approach to symptom screening, assessment and management.
Your Symptoms Matter Project
From April 2017 to June 2018, 8 Regional Renal Programs in Ontario participated in a 1-year pilot project. People getting in-facility hemodialysis at participating programs filled out the Your Symptoms Matter questionnaire (also called Edmonton Symptom Assessment System Revised – Renal or ESAS-r: Renal) and talked about the results with their care team.
In May 2019, we started expanding the Your Symptoms Matter project to 16 new sites. These sites will use the ESAS-r:Renal questionnaire and/or a new tool, called the Euroqol EQ-5D-5L, that measures a person’s overall health. The results of this project will help us develop an organized approach to symptom management that can be used across the province.