Statistical analysis
Baseline characteristics were reported using descriptive statistics by frequencies (n, %), means (SD), and medians (interquartile range [IQR]), as appropriate. A completed questionnaire was defined as containing responses to each of the 15 symptoms on the IPOS-Renal and all five dimensions in the EQ-5D-5L. A ‘complete case’ was defined as a participant who completed the baseline questionnaire and all subsequent questionnaires as per study allocation.Response rates were assessed cross sectionally at baseline, 3- and 6- months. This was defined as the total number of participants who completed the questionnaire, out of all the eligible participants in the unit at that time point, including new incident participants. Retention rate at 6 months was calculated to assess the proportion of participants that continued in the study from baseline. The denominator did not include new incident participants and was the total number of participants that completed the questionnaire at baseline but had not died, transferred to another unit, nor changed modality (e.g., received kidney transplant, changed to peritoneal dialysis), to reflect “true retention”. In a similar fashion, we assessed the retention rate at 3-months for participants in the intervention arm. For purposes of assessing completion time, we excluded completed responses that took > 60 minutes because this likely reflected a connectivity fault with submission of the e-PROMs, but in all other relevant analyses these participants were included. The proportion of participants in the intervention arm that required assistance to complete the questionnaire from nurses or friend/relative was also reported.Furthermore, change in e-PROM scores were described for ‘complete cases’. We did not perform hypothesis testing as this study was not powered to detect a difference between the groups. The frequency of each health state and proportion of participants who reported ‘some’ level of problem (i.e. levels 2 or more) for each dimension were calculated. Changes in EQ-5D-5L health states were analyzed using a Paretian classification method wherein participants were classified as “same imperfect health” if they reported the same health state at both time points, “improved health state” if there was improvement in any of the dimensions with no deterioration in the remaining ones, “worse health state” if there was worsening in any of the dimensions with no deterioration in the remaining ones, or “mixed health state” if there was both improvement and worsening in any of the dimensions [