Advance directives and outcomes of surrogate decision making before death.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Recent discussions about health care reform have raised questions regarding the value of advance directives.

Methods

We used data from survey proxies in the Health and Retirement Study involving adults 60 years of age or older who had died between 2000 and 2006 to determine the prevalence of the need for decision making and lost decision-making capacity and to test the association between preferences documented in advance directives and outcomes of surrogate decision making.

Results

Of 3746 subjects, 42.5% required decision making, of whom 70.3% lacked decision-making capacity and 67.6% of those subjects, in turn, had advance directives. Subjects who had living wills were more likely to want limited care (92.7%) or comfort care (96.2%) than all care possibl

SUBMITTER: Silveira MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2880881 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature