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

BMC Palliative Care

Table 4 Role of the relative in decision-making for older people with limited decision-making capacity before death and with or without an appointed proxy AD (n=213, rounded percentages)

	Older people without an appointed proxy AD	Older people with an appointed proxy AD
	n=163*	n=50*
	(%)	(%)
Received care in accordance with preferences of patient ^†
Yes	67	67
Partly	17	20
No	6	12
Don’t know	11	0
Patient’s satisfaction with contact between physician and patient
Satisfied	68	68
Neutral	22	19
Not satisfied	11	13
Don’t know
What influence in decision-making did relative have during the last 3 months
Determined decisions	6	10
Influential	45	45
Not very influential	17	20
Not influential	12	12
No decisions had to be made	20	12
Satisfaction of relative with their influence in decision-making
Satisfied	70	70
Neutral	23	16
Not satisfied	7	14
Satisfaction of relative with end-of-life care and consideration of preferences
Satisfied	78	74
Neutral	17	13
Not satisfied	5	13

^*Missings in all groups of all variables were less than 5% of the total N; people without an appointed proxy AD: 54 respondents of ADC sample and 109 respondents of LASA sample; people with a proxy AD: 49 respondents of ADC sample and 1 respondents of LASA sample.
^†Difference between the two groups significant (p <0. 05).

ISSN: 1472-684X