Green home-based dialysis and sustainability: A Scoping Review

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a structured overview of environmental impact evidence in home dialysis, identifying research gaps for future studies.

🏢実務担当者:Offers insights for healthcare providers considering sustainable dialysis options, highlighting carbon and resource benefits.

🏛政策担当者:Informs healthcare policy on promoting home-based dialysis as a climate mitigation strategy.

Background Climate change is among the foremost threats to global health, and the healthcare sector is itself a substantial source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Dialysis is one of the most resource- and carbon-intensive treatments in medicine, and homebased modalities have been proposed as a more sustainable alternative to in-centre care. Despite growing interest, the empirical evidence on the environmental impact of home dialysis, and on whether sustainability influences its uptake, has not been systematically mapped. This scoping review aimed to summarise the available evidence on (1) the environmental impacts of home-based dialysis, (2) resource use across water, energy, waste, and transport, and (3) whether sustainability considerations affect the uptake of home-based dialysis. Methods Following the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR), an information specialist searched five databases — PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and GreenFile — with the final search conducted on 5 August 2026. Two independent reviewers screened records in Covidence; data were extracted in NVivo and synthesised using a relational analytical framework. Results The search identified 3,929 records, reduced to 2,704 after removing duplicates; 14 studies, published between 2007 and 2026 and almost half appearing in 2024–2026, met the inclusion criteria. The evidence base was methodologically heterogeneous but anchored by six life cycle assessments; haemodialysis was the focus of eight studies, peritoneal dialysis of four, and two examined both modalities. Home haemodialysis consistently showed a lower carbon footprint than in-centre treatment, driven largely by avoided patient travel. Resource use was the most-reported domain, where consumables and packaging, rather than energy, typically formed the largest burden, with transport a consistent secondary contributor, and PVC recycling identified as a tangible mitigation lever. Only two studies addressed whether sustainability affects uptake, and both did so speculatively; person-centred outcomes were reported in just three studies.

• EarthArXiv https://eartharxiv.org/repository/object/14365/download/25067/first seen 2026-08-13 04:37:22