The instrumental value of advance directives : lesson learned from the covid-19 pandemic for policymaking

Article indépendant

STOCK, Elisabeth | NICKEL, Christian H. | ELGER, Bernice S. | MARTANI, Andrea

Open conversations between patients and healthcare professionals (HCP) are required to evaluate which treatments are reasonable for the individual case, especially towards the end of life. Advance Care Planning (ACP), which often results in drafting an Advance Directive (AD), is a useful tool to help with decisions in these circumstances, but the rate of AD completion remains low. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ACP and AD gained popularity due to the alleged advantage that they could facilitate resource allocation, to the benefit of public health. In this article, which presents a theoretical reflection grounded in scientific evidence, we underline an even stronger ethical argument to support the implementation of AD in end-of-life care (eol-C) i.e. the instrumental value at the individual level. We show, with particular reference to lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, that AD are instrumentally valuable in that they: (1) allow to thematise death; (2) ensure that overtreatment is avoided; (3) enable to better respect the wish of people to die at their preferred place; (4) help revive the "lost skill" of prognostication. We thus conclude that these arguments speak for promoting the territorially uniform implementation and accessibility of high-quality AD in care.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s43999-025-00060-6

Voir la revue «Research in health services and regions, 4»

Autres numéros de la revue «Research in health services and regions»

Consulter en ligne

Suggestions

Du même auteur

The instrumental value of advance directives ...

Article | STOCK, Elisabeth | Research in health services and regions | n°1 | vol.4

Open conversations between patients and healthcare professionals (HCP) are required to evaluate which treatments are reasonable for the individual case, especially towards the end of life. Advance Care Planning (ACP), which often ...

The instrumental value of advance directives ...

Article indépendant | STOCK, Elisabeth | Research in health services and regions | n°1 | vol.4

Open conversations between patients and healthcare professionals (HCP) are required to evaluate which treatments are reasonable for the individual case, especially towards the end of life. Advance Care Planning (ACP), which often ...

End-of-life decisions in emergency patients :...

Article | SIEGRIST, Victoria | QJM: monthly journal of the Association of Physicians

Background: End-of-life decisions (EOLD) represent potentially highly consequential decisions often made in acute situations, such as "do not attempt resuscitation" (DNAR) choices at emergency presentation. Aim: We investigated DN...

De la même série

The instrumental value of advance directives ...

Article indépendant | STOCK, Elisabeth | Research in health services and regions | n°1 | vol.4

Open conversations between patients and healthcare professionals (HCP) are required to evaluate which treatments are reasonable for the individual case, especially towards the end of life. Advance Care Planning (ACP), which often ...

From static snapshots to dynamic panoramas : ...

Article indépendant | TRIPODORO, Vilma A. | Research in health services and regions | n°1 | vol.3

Palliative care is essential to global health services as it improves the quality of life of patients, their families and caregivers. The ATLANTES Global Observatory of Palliative Care (University of Navarra) was created a decade ...

End-of-life cohorts from the Dartmouth instit...

Article indépendant | BRONNER, Kristen K. | Research in health services and regions | n°1 | vol.3

Since their inception, small area studies intended to measure health system performance have been challenged by concerns that regional variation in health care may be primarily explained by differences in patient health risk. Cont...

Organisation and management of multi-professi...

Article indépendant | ZUCCARINO, Sara | Research in health services and regions | n°1 | vol.3

Providing timely and satisficing End-of-Life care (EOLC) is a priority for healthcare systems since aging population and chronic diseases are boosting the global demand for care at end-of-life (EOL). In OECD countries the access t...

Pediatric palliative care in Brazil : reflect...

Article indépendant | LUIZ FERREIRA, Esther Angélica | Research in health services and regions | n°1 | vol.3

INTRODUCTION: In Brazil, a country of continental dimensions, the lack of services in the different regions is a major barrier that prevents patients from accessing Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC). If accessing PPC is already chal...

Chargement des enrichissements...