End-of-Life Planning More Likely After Discussing Wishes

Researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center say that patients who discuss their wishes for end-of-life care are more likely to complete advance directives. The study authors say these discussions should be encouraged and recommend considering "making oral advance directives discussed with physicians legally binding in all states, since many more people talk about end-of-life care with their physicians than spell out their wishes in written form. In most states, only written advance directives have legal standing."

The study, published in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, looked at 173 patients at San Francisco General Hospital who had participated in a previous study comparing preferences for different types of advance directive forms. Six months after that study, the authors asked the participants if they had made plans for their own end-of-life care.

They found that 60 percent of the participants had thought about their wishes for their own advanced care planning, 54 percent had talked about it with family and friends, 21 percent had talked with their physicians, and 10 percent had filled out advance directives.

Analyzing the results further, the authors found that the participants who had discussed advance care planning with family and friends were 12 times more likely to subsequently have discussed it with their physicians and four times more likely to have filled out an advance directive than those who had not.