Advance Directives and End-of-Life Care among Nursing Home Residents Receiving Maintenance Dialysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background and objectives

Little is known about the relation between the content of advance directives and downstream treatment decisions among patients receiving maintenance dialysis. In this study, we determined the prevalence of advance directives specifying treatment limitations and/or surrogate decision-makers in the last year of life and their association with end-of-life care among nursing home residents.

Design, setting, participants, & measurements

Using national data from 2006 to 2007, we compared the content of advance directives among 30,716 nursing home residents receiving dialysis to 30,825 nursing home residents with other serious illnesses during the year before death. Among patients receiving dialysis, we linked the content of advance directives to Medicare

SUBMITTER: Kurella Tamura M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5338713 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature