Frequency of discussing and documenting advance care planning in primary care: secondary analysis of a multicenter cross-sectional observational study

Definition and recommendations of advance care planning: A Delphi study in five Asian sectors

BACKGROUND

In Confucian-influenced Asian societies, explicit end-of-life conversations are uncommon and family involvement in decision-making is crucial, which complicates the adoption of culturally sensitive advance care planning.

AIM

To develop a consensus definition of advance care planning and provide recommendations for patient-centered and family-based initiatives in Asia.

DESIGN

A five-round Delphi study was performed. The rating of a definition and 84 recommendations developed based on systematic reviews was performed by experts with clinical or research expertise using a 7-point Likert scale. A median = 1 and an inter-quartile range = 0-1 were considered very strong agreement and very strong consensus, respectively.

SETTING/PARTICIPANTS

The Delphi study was carried out by multidisciplinary experts on advance care planning in five Asian sectors (Hong Kong/Japan/Korea/Singapore/Taiwan).

RESULTS

Seventy-seven of 115 (67%) experts rated the statements. Advance care planning is defined as "a process that enables individuals to identify their values, to define goals and preferences for future medical treatment and care, to discuss these values, goals, and preferences with family and/or other closely related persons, and health-care providers, and to record and review these preferences if appropriate." Recommendations in the domains of considerations for a person-centered and family-based approach, as well as elements, roles and tasks, timing for initiative, policy and regulation, and evaluations received high levels of agreement and consensus.

CONCLUSIONS

Our definition and recommendations can guide practice, education, research, and policy-making in advance care planning for Asian populations. Our findings will aid future research in crafting culturally sensitive advance care planning interventions, ensuring Asians receive value-aligned care.

Determining the Effects of Complex Education on Primary Care Nurse Practitioners' Self-efficacy in Advance Care Planning for Healthy Adults

Advance care planning is a process in which capable adults communicate their preferences for medical care in case of incapacitation. Regardless of health status, most adults are interested in advance care planning conversations and prefer providers to initiate these discussions. Primary care nurse practitioners are ideally positioned to lead these conversations but lack knowledge, confidence, and communication skills to do so. This project aimed to develop, implement, and evaluate an educational program for primary care nurse practitioners regarding leading advance care planning conversations with healthy adults. This evidence-based practice project used the Advance Care Planning Self-Efficacy Scale to measure primary care nurse practitioners' self-efficacy after completing a complex educational program. The educational program was developed based on a nationally recognized program incorporating didactic, observational, and role-play learning. The findings of this project indicated that providing complex education was an effective intervention immediately and after 3 months ( P = .018 and P = .023, respectively). The results indicate that educating nurse practitioners is an effective intervention for increasing their self-efficacy in leading advance care planning conversations with healthy adults over 3 months, recommending additional intervention at least earlier than 6 months.

Mid-Atlantic primary care providers' perception of barriers and facilitators to end-of-life conversation

Background

Among the chronically ill, end-of-life conversations are often delayed until emergently necessary and the quality of those conversations and subsequent decision-making become compromised by critical illness, uncertainty, and anxiety. Many patients receive treatment that they would have declined if they had a better understanding of benefits and risks. Primary care providers are ideal people to facilitate end-of-life conversations, but these conversations rarely occur in the out-patient setting.

Objective

To investigate the self-reported experiences of physicians and advanced practice nurses with conversational barriers and facilitators while leading end-of-life discussions in the primary care setting.

Design

A qualitative descriptive study.

Methods

Six physicians and eight advanced practice nurses participated in singular semi-structured interviews. Results were analyzed using a qualitative descriptive design and content analysis approach to coding.

Results

Reported barriers in descending order included resistance from patients and families, insufficient time, and insufficient understanding of prognosis and associated expectations. Reported facilitators in descending order included established trusting relationship with provider, physical and/or cognitive decline and poor prognosis; and discussion standardization per Medicare guidelines.

Conclusion

Recommendations for improving the end-of-life conversational process in the primary care setting include further research regarding end-of-life conversational facilitators within families, the improvement of patient/family education about hospice/palliative care resources and examining the feasibility of longer appointment allotment.1.

Culturally Adapted Consensus Definition and Action Guideline: Japan's Advance Care Planning

CONTEXT

A conceptual framework for advance care planning is lacking in societies like Japan's valuing family-centered decision-making.

OBJECTIVES

A consensus definition of advance care planning with action guideline adapted to Japanese society.

METHODS

We conducted a multidisciplinary modified Delphi study 2020-2022. Thirty physicians, 10 healthcare and bioethics researchers, six nurses, three patient care managers, three medical social workers, three law experts, and a chaplain evaluated, in 7 rounds (including two web-based surveys where the consensus level was defined as ratings by ≥70% of panelists of 7-9 on a nine-point Likert scale), brief sentences delineating the definition, scope, subjects, and action guideline for advance care planning in Japan.

RESULTS

The resulting 29-item set attained the target consensus level, with 72%-96% of item ratings 7-9. Advance care planning was defined as "an individual's thinking about and discussing with their family and other people close to them, with the support as necessary of healthcare providers who have established a trusting relationship with them, preparations for the future, including the way of life and medical treatment and care that they wish to have in the future." This definition/action guideline specifically included support for individuals hesitant to express opinions to develop and express preparations for the future.

CONCLUSION

Adaptation of advance care planning to Japanese culture by consciously enhancing and supporting individuals' autonomous decision-making may facilitate its spread and establishment in Japan and other societies with family-centered decision-making cultures.

Readiness of Advance Care Planning Among Patients With Cardiovascular Disease

Background

Advance care planning (ACP) is a widely advocated strategy to improve outcomes at end-of-life care for patients suffering from heart failure (HF). However, finding the right time to start ACP is challenging for healthcare providers because it is often a sensitive issue for patients with HF and their families. We interviewed patients with cardiovascular diseases regarding ACP readiness and investigated the relationship between the ACP desire and multiple clinical prognostic parameters.

Method

Eighty-one patients (average age 81.8 ± 10.3 years old, 42 men, 62 cases of HF) who introduced cardiac rehabilitation were inquired about previous ACP experience, a desire for ACP, understanding of their cardiovascular diseases, and lifestyle-associated questionnaires. Multiple logistic regression analyses were employed to identify the clinical parameters associated with ACP desire. Patients who desired ACP were also asked about their preferences for medical care at the end-of-life.

Results

Nine patients (11.1%) had previous experience with ACP, and 28 (34.6%) preferred to implement ACP. Patients who did not want to implement ACP were 54.3%. Patients with HF showed a higher acceptance rate of ACP (odds ratio [OR] 5.56, p = 0.015). Interestingly, patients harboring skeletal muscle frailty showed lower ACP acceptance, while patients with non-frailty rather positively wanted to implement ACP. Two types of prognosis evaluation scales, such as the Enhanced Feedback for Effective Cardiac Treatment (EFFECT) risk score and the Japanese Version of Supportive and Palliative Care Indicators Tool (SPICT-JP), identified 31 patients (38.3%) needing ACP; however, 19 (61.3%) did not want ACP. The wish not to attempt resuscitation and life-prolonging treatment at the end-of-life reached approximately 70% among patients who requested ACP.

Conclusions

Although patients with HF tended to be ready for implementing ACP, the presence of skeletal muscle frailty was negatively associated with ACP preference. Indeed, patients who should be considered ACP were not carried out and did not desire it. Earlier introduction of ACP into patients before having skeletal muscle frailty may be considered.

Is Primary Care Physician Involvement Associated with Earlier Advance Care Planning?: A Study of Patients in an Academic Primary Care Setting

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) is important to improving end-of-life care. Few studies have examined the impact of primary care physician (PCP) involvement in ACP. Objectives: To determine whether complete ACP, defined as health care proxy (HCP), provider orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST), and documented goals-of-care (GOC) conversations, would occur earlier when the PCP was involved in POLST and/or GOC conversations. Design: Charts of deceased patients from 2015 to 2017 in a U.S. academic primary care practice were reviewed. Demographic factors, mortality risk scores, palliative care involvement, and visits within the last year of life to PCPs and specialists were collected. Poisson models with robust variance estimators were used to estimate the likelihood of PCP involvement being associated with earlier complete ACP after adjusting for confounders and accounting for clustering by PCP. Due to high rates of HCP documentation at the institution, 10 patients without HCP were excluded from the review. Results: Of 403 decreased patients, 71 (18%) met criteria for complete ACP and 214 (53%) had HCP only; the remaining 118 patients had partial (2/3 components) ACP. Of the 71 patients with complete ACP, 40.1% had ACP earlier than three months of death (early) and 59.2% had ACP within three months of death (late). PCP involvement was associated with early ACP compared with late ACP and HCP only for both PCP completion of the POLST (risk ratio [RR]: 4.7; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.3-17.1) and for PCP documentation of GOC conversation (RR: 4.6; 95% CI: 1.2-17.1) after adjustment for clustering by PCP and other relevant variables. Conclusion: This retrospective cohort study suggests that PCP involvement in ACP correlates with earlier completion. This finding highlights the importance of educating and encouraging PCPs on completing ACP with their patients.

Assessing Quality in Advance Care Planning Documentation: A Survey of Current Methods

BACKGROUND

High-quality advance care planning (ACP) documentation facilitates the communication of patients' wishes as they progress in their disease course and travel between health care settings. No consensus exists regarding evaluation of documentation quality, and diverse strategies for assessing quality have been adopted in clinical ACP studies.

METHODOLOGY

We conducted a literature review in PubMed and via manual search to identify clinical studies that assessed ACP quality or completeness as an outcome measure over a 5-year period. Studies that treated ACP as a binary outcome variable (present or absent), studies that took place outside of the US, and studies in pediatric populations were excluded from review.

RESULTS

We identified 11 studies for inclusion in our review. Across study methodologies, the following 8 quality domains were identified: discussion frequency, documentation accessibility, discussion timing, health care proxy, health goals or values, scope of treatment/code status, prognosis/illness understanding, and end of life (EOL) care planning. Each study assessed between 2 and 6 domains. Divergent methods for assessing quality domains were utilized, including manual qualitative analysis and natural language processing techniques.

CONCLUSION

Defining and measuring the quality of documentation is critical to developing ACP programs that improve patient care. Our review provides an adaptable framework centered around quality domains.

Development of a theory-based video-game intervention to increase advance care planning conversations by healthcare providers

Background

Hospitalization offers an opportunity for healthcare providers to initiate advance care planning (ACP) conversations, yet such conversations occur infrequently. Barriers to these conversations include attitudes, skill, and time. Our objective was to develop a theory-based, provider-level intervention to increase the frequency of ACP conversations in hospitals.

Methods

We followed a systematic process to develop a theory-based, provider-level intervention to increase ACP conversations between providers and their hospitalized patients. Using principles established in Intervention Mapping and the Behavior Change Wheel, we identified a behavioral target, a theory of behavior change, behavior change techniques, and a mode of delivery. We addressed a limitation of these two processes of intervention development by also establishing a framework of design principles to structure the selection of intervention components. We partnered with a game development company to translate the output into a video game.

Results

We identified willingness to engage in ACP conversations as the primary contributor to ACP behavior, and attitudes as a modifiable source of this willingness. We selected self-determination theory, and its emphasis on increasing autonomous motivation, as a relevant theory of behavior change and means of changing attitudes. Second, we mapped the components of autonomous motivation (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) to relevant behavior change techniques (e.g., identity). Third, we decided to deliver the intervention using a video game and to use the narrative engagement framework, which describes the use of stories to educate, model behavior, and immerse the user, to structure our selection of intervention components. Finally, in collaboration with a game development company, we used this framework to develop an adventure video game (Hopewell Hospitalist).

Conclusions

The systematic development of a theory-based intervention facilitates the mechanistic testing of the efficacy of the intervention, including the specification of hypotheses regarding mediators and moderators of outcomes. The intervention will be tested in a randomized clinical trial.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43058-021-00216-8.

Views of advanced cancer patients, families, and oncologists on initiating and engaging in advance care planning: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Advance care planning (ACP) is a process by which patients reflect upon their goals, values and beliefs to allow them to make decisions about their future medical treatment that align with their goals and values, improving patient-centered care. Despite this, ACP is underutilized and is reported as one of the most difficult processes of oncology. We sought to: 1) explore patients' and families' understanding, experience and reflections on ACP, as well as what they need from their physicians during the process; 2) explore physicians' views of ACP, including their experiences with initiating ACP and views on ACP training.

METHODS

This was a qualitative descriptive study in Nova Scotia, Canada with oncologists, advanced cancer out-patients and their family members. Semi-structured interviews with advanced cancer out-patients and their family members (n = 4 patients, 4 family members) and oncologists (n = 10) were conducted; each participant was recruited separately. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis, which entailed coding, categorizing, and identifying themes recurrent across the datasets.

RESULTS

Themes were identified from the patient / family and oncologist groups, four and five respectively. Themes from patients / families included: 1) positive attitudes towards ACP; 2) healthcare professionals (HCPs) lack an understanding of patients' and families' informational needs during the ACP process; 3) limited access to services and supports; and 4) poor communication between HCPs. Themes from oncologists included: 1) initiation of ACP discussions; 2) navigating patient-family dynamics; 3) limited formal training in ACP; 4) ACP requires a team approach; and 5) lack of coordinated systems hinders ACP.

CONCLUSIONS

Stakeholders believe ACP for advanced cancer patients is important. Patients and families desire earlier and more in-depth discussion of ACP, additional services and supports, and improved communication between their HCPs. In the absence of formal training or guidance, oncologists have used clinical acumen to initiate ACP and a collaborative healthcare team approach.