Cargando…

Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age

Introduction An advance directive (AD) is a written legal document in which a person can express wishes and preferences for medical treatment for the moment when that person is no longer able to make medical decisions because of a serious illness or injury. While ADs have emerged in public, it is un...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Graw, Jan A., Burchard, René
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8081623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33968449
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/5537599
_version_ 1783685680806756352
author Graw, Jan A.
Burchard, René
author_facet Graw, Jan A.
Burchard, René
author_sort Graw, Jan A.
collection PubMed
description Introduction An advance directive (AD) is a written legal document in which a person can express wishes and preferences for medical treatment for the moment when that person is no longer able to make medical decisions because of a serious illness or injury. While ADs have emerged in public, it is unclear, how many adults in Germany have completed an AD, and frequencies differ among different patient cohorts and medical settings. The aim of this study was to evaluate how many patients visiting a trauma emergency room (ER) in an academic teaching hospital had completed an AD. Furthermore, patient characteristics were compared between patients who had completed an AD and those who had not completed an AD. Methods. Patients with a traumatic injury or disease who attended the ER of an academic teaching hospital in the period from October 2015 to March 2016 (n = 499) were surveyed for completion rates of ADs. Results. Prior to their visit to the ER, 12.8% of the included patients possessed a completed AD. Patients with a completed AD had a higher age (median age: 54 (IQR: 34–66) vs. 35 (IQR: 25–50) p < 0.001) and were less often living in an urban residential location (UR) (UR: 23.5% vs. 39.4%, p=0.029). Groups did not differ between sex (p=0.115), frequencies of high school graduates (p=0.482), and possession of a private health insurance (p=0.072), disability insurance (p=0.291), or an accident insurance (p=0.790). Conclusion. Completion rates of ADs remain low among patients visiting an ER of an academic teaching hospital in Germany. Increasing age but not factors such as sex, educational background, or insurance status were associated with a higher frequency of completed ADs.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8081623
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Hindawi
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-80816232021-05-06 Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age Graw, Jan A. Burchard, René Emerg Med Int Research Article Introduction An advance directive (AD) is a written legal document in which a person can express wishes and preferences for medical treatment for the moment when that person is no longer able to make medical decisions because of a serious illness or injury. While ADs have emerged in public, it is unclear, how many adults in Germany have completed an AD, and frequencies differ among different patient cohorts and medical settings. The aim of this study was to evaluate how many patients visiting a trauma emergency room (ER) in an academic teaching hospital had completed an AD. Furthermore, patient characteristics were compared between patients who had completed an AD and those who had not completed an AD. Methods. Patients with a traumatic injury or disease who attended the ER of an academic teaching hospital in the period from October 2015 to March 2016 (n = 499) were surveyed for completion rates of ADs. Results. Prior to their visit to the ER, 12.8% of the included patients possessed a completed AD. Patients with a completed AD had a higher age (median age: 54 (IQR: 34–66) vs. 35 (IQR: 25–50) p < 0.001) and were less often living in an urban residential location (UR) (UR: 23.5% vs. 39.4%, p=0.029). Groups did not differ between sex (p=0.115), frequencies of high school graduates (p=0.482), and possession of a private health insurance (p=0.072), disability insurance (p=0.291), or an accident insurance (p=0.790). Conclusion. Completion rates of ADs remain low among patients visiting an ER of an academic teaching hospital in Germany. Increasing age but not factors such as sex, educational background, or insurance status were associated with a higher frequency of completed ADs. Hindawi 2021-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8081623/ /pubmed/33968449 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/5537599 Text en Copyright © 2021 Jan A. Graw and René Burchard. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Graw, Jan A.
Burchard, René
Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age
title Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age
title_full Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age
title_fullStr Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age
title_full_unstemmed Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age
title_short Completion Rates of Advance Directives in a Trauma Emergency Room: Association with Age
title_sort completion rates of advance directives in a trauma emergency room: association with age
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8081623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33968449
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/5537599
work_keys_str_mv AT grawjana completionratesofadvancedirectivesinatraumaemergencyroomassociationwithage
AT burchardrene completionratesofadvancedirectivesinatraumaemergencyroomassociationwithage