Patients
Twenty-six patients with advanced kidney disease were interviewed (See table 4); eighteen were in CKD 5 stage and twelve were female; seven patients have a college degree or more; Ten participants were working, while others were not working.
Our analysis identified the three themes: 1. Self-referral decision making (Sub-themes: self-referral motives; barriers to self-referral; searching for self-referral information) 2. The experience and views of self-referral care (Sub-themes: facilitating shared decision making; imposing psychological pressure; feeling about self-referral communication; challenges on staff-patient relationship); 3. Treatment decision making (Sub-themes: decisional awareness and role; cost-benefit trade-off and redecision); Below we will discuss each theme (also depicted in Fig. 1).