Advance directives in the primary care setting

This study investigated the research questions: How many people have an advance directive? and Do people want their primary care provider to discuss advanced directives during a routine office visit? This nonexperimental, quantitative study used a researcher designed questionnaire. The questionnaire was given to 100 members of a local wellness center who varied in sex, age, marital status and religion. Seventy-nine questionnaires were returned. Twenty-three percent of the research subjects indicated that they had advance directives, which was higher than the 15%-18% reported in the literature for random populations. But, only 43% wanted their primary care provider to discuss advance directives during a routine office visit, well below the 65%-68% reported in the literature for random populations. The results of this study, in contrast to other studies in the literature, showed that these subjects did not want their primary care provider to initiate a discussion of advance directives.