Metadata record for Do Older Adults Know Their Spouses' End-of-Life Treatment Preferences?

Do Older Adults Know Their Spouses' End-of-Life Treatment Preferences? Moorman, Sara M. Hauser, Robert M. Carr, Deborah Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research ICPSR 2009-06-23 25701 doi://10.3886/ICPSR25701.v1

When terminally ill patients become mentally incapacitated, their surrogates often make treatment decisions in collaboration with health care providers. The authors examined how surrogates? errors in reporting their spouses? preferences are affected by their gender, status as durable power of attorney for health care (DPAHC), whether they and their spouses discussed end-of-life preferences, and their spouses? health status. Structural equation models were applied to data from married couples in their mid-60s from the 2004 wave of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Surrogates reported their spouses? preferences incorrectly 13 percent and 26 percent of the time in end-of-life scenarios involving cognitive impairment and physical pain, respectively. Surrogates projected their own preferences onto their spouses?. Similar patterns emerged regardless of surrogate gender and status as DPAHC, marital discussions about end-of-life preferences, or spousal health status. Implications for the process of surrogate decision-making and for future research are discussed.

UniverseScheme25701 Organization25701_1 T32-AG000129 ICPSR.XVIII NACDA.V NACDA.VI DSDR.IX DSDR.III aging caregiver burden caregivers death dying health care health care services health status marital relations marriage medical care patient care patients physician patient relationship power of attorney spouses surrogate terminal care terminal illnesses treatment United States ICPSR

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Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Rearch ICPSR

Ann Arbor MI

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ netmail@icpsr.umich.edu United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. National Institute on Aging StudyUnit25701

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