Increasing Awareness about Advance Care Planning among Women in Crow Wing County, Minnesota

• Main Author: Kaushal, Kati Jo
• Format: Others
• Published: North Dakota State University 2018
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10365/28862

Advance care planning (ACP) includes making decisions about end-of-life care in the form of a health care directive which includes identifying a health agent to make decisions for people when they are unable to make decisions for themselves. A health care directive gives a person the opportunity to make end-of-life care wishes known to family members, providers, health care facilities, health agents, and others (National Institute on Aging, 2017). ACP can result in increased patient satisfaction of care, better provider understanding of the patient’s end of life wishes, as well as decreased family, provider or patient anxiety when having to make urgent health care decisions (Dube, McCarron and Nannini, 2015). Despite literature to support the importance of advance care planning, the completion rates of health care directives in the United States range from only 18% to 30%. A lack of awareness about advance care planning is one reason people do not complete an advance directive (Ashcraft & Owen, 2016). Raising awareness by providing health care directive completion education and information to women attending the Health is Your Best Accessory health event offered an opportunity to increase the number of women with completed heath care directives. Over 900 women attended the health event. Participants completed the survey after the presentation. Sixty-seven percent (N=49) of the participants surveyed (N=73) reported not having a health care directive (HCD) on file with their primary care provider. Sixty-two participants of the women’s health event indicated they were interested in additional information about advance care planning and were invited to a follow-up seminar to participate in a PowerPoint presentation and step-by-step tutorial in completing a health are directive. Two people attended the follow-up seminar. Survey data collected showed the attendees rated the presenter, presentation, and content as excellent, and both answered yes when asked if they felt they had enough information, after taking part in the presentation, to complete a health care directive.