Objective: To describe complementary and alternative therapies reported in patients with kidney disease and the effects found. Material and methods: A bibliographic search was performed in several databases: PubMed, Web of Science, RedAlyC, Scielo, Cochrane Library, and Scopus data, Medline, Embase, and EBSCO, using keywords to locate articles from the last 10 years in English and Spanish. Therapies were classified into 5 groups: complete medical systems, mind-body medicine, biological therapies, manipulative and body-based practices, and energy therapies, by means of matrices. Results: 13 articles were found in total of alternative or complementary therapies used in patients with kidney disease: 3 in medical systems, 2 in mind-body medicine, 4 in biological therapies, and 4 in manipulation-based practices and body and energy therapies. Conclusions: Of the 13 articles found 9 of them showed positive effects in the direct treatment of patients' kidney disease or symptoms, however, the groups of studies were too small to point out that these treatments really work. We found 4 articles focused not on the direct treatment of the disease or its symptoms but on the psychoemotional improvement of the patients, in which they found that the use of alternative therapies in conjunction with their treatments helped to reduce stress and anxiety.