Clinical trial NCT00121004: A Study to Tailor Advance Directives
Official title: A Study to Tailor Advance Directives
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Dementia
Persistent Vegetative State
Terminally Ill
Keywords: Advance Directive
Living Will
Terminal Illness
Lead sponsor: University of Chicago
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2005-07-19
Enrollment: 100
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Hospitalized patients admitted to the general medical service at the University of Chicago

Brief summary: In this study, hospitalized patients will first be surveyed regarding their interest in a traditional advanced directive (AD) and then in a modified AD.

Detailed description: The purpose of this study is to assess whether patients will execute an advance directive which offers a limited trial of life-sustaining therapy in non-terminal illness, declines life-sustaining therapy or artificial nutrition in advanced dementia, or declines life-sustaining therapy in general. Advance directives (ADs) as currently drafted have been questioned since they have not had much effect on end-of-life care. However, the reason for the lack of success may be simply that they rarely apply. Traditional ADs, which are limited to terminal illness or persistent vegetative states, are difficult to apply to the more common cases of critical illness in the setting of potentially reversible disease and advanced dementia, which are often not recognized as terminal. In addition, terminal ADs are drafted too narrowly for patients who do not wish for life-sustaining therapy regardless of condition.

Patients may execute either AD at the conclusion of the survey. This research has the potential to demonstrate widely reproducible methods on which more precise advance planning can be based and thereby improve end-of-life care.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Hospitalized patients admitted to the general medical service at the University of Chicago
* Previously enrolled in a study of hospitalized general medicine patients at the University of Chicago

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients who score less than 17 out of 30 on the Folstein Mini-Mental Status Examination or who have a proxy decision-maker
* Patients who are medically unstable based on two or more abnormal vital signs
* Patients who face a possible new diagnosis of cancer

Primary outcomes:
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chicago
country: United States
facility: The University of Chicago
state: Illinois
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Chicago
name: Elmer Abbo, M.D., Ph.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of Chicago
name: David Meltzer, M.D., Ph.D.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
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