Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Palliative Medicine
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
0269216308094336v1
22/7/835    most recent
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Pautex, S
Right arrow Articles by Zulian, G B
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Pautex, S
Right arrow Articles by Zulian, G B
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
Medline Plus Health Information
*Advance Directives
*Cancer
*Palliative Care
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Article

Role of advance directives in palliative care units: a prospective study

S Pautex1, F R Herrmann2, and G B Zulian1

1 Service of Palliative Medicine, Department of Rehabilitation and Geriatrics, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva
2 Service of Geriatrics, Department of Rehabilitation and Geriatrics, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.


  Abstract

Advance directives (ADs) might be useful in achieving improved communication and satisfaction with decision making at the end-of-life. Our aims were to better characterise patients with advanced oncological disease who decided to complete ADs and to measure the effect of ADs completion on the satisfaction level with end-of-life care from both patients and their relatives. A prospective study was conducted in three palliative care units. Patients with advanced cancer were included if they met the following criteria: an estimated life expectancy of <6 months, fluency in French, Mini Mental State Examination >20 and not yet completed ADs. All the patients received information about ADs and decided whether to complete ADs or not. The level of satisfaction with involvement in the decision process concerning end-of-life care was assessed by means of a written questionnaire. In all, 53 of 228 patients were included, and 12 decided to complete ADs. Patients who completed ADs had statistically less depression one week after inclusion (P = 0.030), had a lower anxiety score on the second week and had a lower depression score on the third week. There was a trend towards a higher satisfaction level with the involvement of the patients in end-of-life care for those completing ADs (P = 0.878). In conclusion, each patient with an advanced progressive disease should be informed about ADs and be encouraged to complete the ADs with the aim to ease many fears as well as to improve communication.

Key Words: advance directives-palliative care-cancer patients

First published on August 21, 2008, doi:10.1177/0269216308094336

Palliative Medicine 2008;22:835.

A more recent version of this article appeared on October 1, 2008

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?