Background: Despite the potential benefits of advance directives, few patients complete
them. This study examined whether barriers to advance decision making can be overcome …

Background: The quality of communication that leads to the completion of written advance
directives may influence the usefulness of these documents, but the nature of that …

Background: Widely publicized court cases have focused national attention on the
importance of advance directives. In spite of initiatives such as the Patient Self …

Background: Despite growing support for advance directives, there are few data validating
their utility. We conducted this study to determine if the type of advance directive influences …

BACKGROUND: Advance directives are a means of promoting patient autonomy in end-of-
life decisions but are used infrequently. A recent federal law requires healthcare …

Background. Advance directives for medical care and the designation of proxy decision
makers to guide medical care after a patient has become incompetent have been widely …

Objective To establish the prevalence of patients with advance directives in a family practice,
and to describe patients' perspectives on a family doctor's role in initiating discussions about …

IN THIS ISSUE of the ARCHIVES, Gross1 presents data about the current use of advance
directives in clinical practice and makes a number of suggestions. Central to this article are a …

Background: Physicians can increase the rate of completion of advance directive forms by
discussing directives with their patients, but the means by which physicians can be induced …

Background: The attitudes of hospitalized patients and their attending physicians about
advance directives have not been well studied. We compared these attitudes and explored …