NCT01346176

The Influence of Default Options in Advance Directives

The Influence of Default Options in Advance Directives for Older Patients: A Pilot Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 132 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 50 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The investigators aim to assess the influence of default options in advance directives on older patients selections of life- extending therapies and to determine whether alerting patients to the spectrum of possible default options in advance directives influences their selections of life-extending therapies by manipulating the default options of advance directives given to patients in with severe respiratory disease

Detailed description

The project is designed to document that default options influence terminally ill patients end-of-life decisions (in this case, adults with advance forms of lung disease) and that our team can recruit and retain patients in a study of advance care planning. In addition, because a larger-scale randomized clinical trial will require that the investigators alert participants to the range of possible default options, the investigators must also determine the effects that this alerting will have on their selections of life-extending therapies. Therefore, the investigators seek to achieve three aims: (1) assess the influence of default options in advance directives on patients selections of life-extending therapies; (2) determine whether alerting patients to the spectrum of possible default options in advance directives influences their selections of life extending therapies; and (3) document the feasibility of recruiting and retaining patients with advanced lung diseases from university-based clinical settings into a randomized trial of default options in advance directives.

Conditions

• Advance Care Planning

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Advance Directive Forms	Consenting subjects will be randomly assigned to one of 3 study arms. Subjects will receive a different AD form based on which arm they have been randomly assigned. Once a completed AD form is received, a debriefing session will be held to alert patients to exactly how the 3 ADs used in the study differ. Once patients are fully informed about the variations in the ADs, they will have an opportunity to change their AD selections prior to finalizing them as a part of their medical record. A final satisfaction interview will take place with a research associate who will contact patients via telephone to administer a satisfaction questionnaire.

Timeline

• Start date: 2010-04-01
• Primary completion: 2012-03-01
• Completion: 2012-08-01
• First posted: 2011-05-02
• Last updated: 2016-02-03
• Results posted: 2016-02-03

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States