The Influence of Default Options in Advance Directives

Advance Care Planning Clinical Trial

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

Status Completed

Clinical Trial 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

Clinical Trial 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. ;

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Single Blind (Subject), Primary Purpose: Health Services Research

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Advance Care Planning

• NCT number: NCT01346176
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of Pennsylvania
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: April 2010
• Completion date: August 2012