National and sub-national prevalence, trend, and burden of end stage renal diseases (ESRD) in Iran 1990-2013; the study protocol.

BACKGROUND End Stage Renal Diseases (ESRD) imposes a huge economic burden on the health system; however, there is a serious lack of data related to ESRD, especially at Sub-national level, in Iran. Calculating the burden of ESRD at National and Sub-national level provides an opportunity to apply cost-effective interventions for the purpose of prevention and treatment. The current study protocol aims to explain the general structure and methods that will be used in the burden of ESRD study in Iran from 1990 to 2013. METHODS The prevalence, incidence, mortality and geographical and socioeconomic inequality trend of ESRD will be calculated through a comprehensive systematic review of published and unpublished data. Years of Life Lost due to premature mortality, and Years Lived with Disability and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) will be quantified for ESRD by gender, age group, and province with their uncertainly intervals. "Spatio-Temporal" and "Bayesian multilevel autoregressive" will be applied to deal with data scarcity and misalignment problem which exist in the data sources. DISCUSSION The findings of the burden of ESRD study will be useful to organize preventive, treatment also research priorities at national and sub-national levels in Iran. Better understanding of the magnitude of ESRD burden is essential to prevent the progression of chronic kidney diseases to the end stage phase which is considered as a devastating illness.