Peritoneal Dialysis in Southeast Asia: A Scoping Review of Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices Among Patients, Caregivers, and Health Care Professionals

This project is a scoping review examining knowledge, attitudes, practices (KAP), psychological experiences, and care preferences related to peritoneal dialysis (PD) among patients, family caregivers, and health care professionals in Southeast Asia (SEA). PD is a home-based renal replacement therapy promoted in several SEA countries to address access barriers, workforce constraints, and system-level costs associated with facility-based hemodialysis. Despite supportive national policies in some settings, PD uptake and long-term sustainability remain variable, suggesting that stakeholder-level factors play an important role in shaping PD utilization. The purpose of this review is to map the extent, range, and nature of empirical evidence describing how PD is understood, perceived, experienced, and practiced by key stakeholders involved in PD care in SEA. The review is guided by a prespecified Knowledge–Attitudes–Practices (KAP) framework, with psychological experiences and decision-making preferences examined as integrated subdomains of attitudes and practices. This framework enables structured mapping across heterogeneous study designs while allowing inductive identification of concepts not captured by the initial model. The review will include quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies involving patients receiving PD, family caregivers, and health care professionals in SEA. A comprehensive search will be conducted in MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, with reference list screening of included studies. Data will be extracted using a structured, piloted form and summarized descriptively, with findings charted and organized by stakeholder group and KAP domain. Expected outcomes include a comprehensive evidence map, identification of modifiable barriers and facilitators influencing PD uptake and sustainability, clarification of stakeholder perspectives, and identification of key gaps to inform future research, policy, and PD program design in Southeast Asia.