FIGURE 1.

Study inclusion and exclusion flow diagram.

^aExplanation of reasons for exclusion: No treatment decision yet includes patients with advanced CKD who did not or did not yet have to decide on a preferred treatment (commonly referred to as ‘non-dialysis dependent CKD patients’), including four studies discussed with the authors to clarify their CC-like patient group (Verberne et al. [3]); mix of patient groups means mix of different patient categories into one patient group without subgroup analyses (e.g. mix of patients who have not made a treatment decision yet and patients who chose CC); no original research, e.g. reviews, opinion papers or study protocols; no outcomes of interest for the initial systematic reviews, i.e. on HRQoL, symptoms, hospitalization and/or mortality.