Decision-making capacity and communication about care of older people during their last three months of life

BMC Palliative Care

Table 3 Experiences with the use of ADs of older people who had and AD and with limited decision-making capacity before death (n = 120, rounded percentages) ^*

	Older people with an AD who had limited decision-making capacity more than a week before death	Older people with an AD who had limited decision-making capacity a week or less before death
	n=36	n=84
	(%)	(%)
Responsible physician was aware of the existence of the AD(s)
Yes	83	87
No	6	2
Don’t know	11	11
Responsible physician was aware of the content of the AD(s)
Yes, fully	82	76
Yes, globally	14	21
No	4	3
Time of physician being informed about the AD(s) ^‡
Before illness	83	52
During illness	13	47
Close to the moment of death	4	2
Discussion about AD in the last week of life with physician ^‡
Yes, with patient	38	32
Yes, with proxy	33	17
No	21	41
Don’t know	8	10
Relative’s perspective on communication process about AD(s) ^‡
Good	48	63
Not good, not bad	12	11
Bad	32	11
No communication	8	10
Don’t know	0	5
Relative’s perspective on additional value of AD(s)
Additional	54	65
Neutral	17	18
Not additional	29	17
Relative’s perspective on influence of AD(s) on care
AD determined decisions	12	22
AD was (very) influential	31	28
AD had little influence	27	15
AD had no influence, because:	31	35
- did not relate to patient’s situation	15	17
- the physician did not want to cooperate	11	2
- the AD was signed too long ago	4	7

^*Missings in all groups of all variables were less than 5% of the total N; 101 respondents of ADC sample and 19 respondents of LASA sample.
^‡Difference between the two groups significant (p < 0.05).

ISSN: 1472-684X