The Role of Advance Care Planning on Community Dwelling Adults' Coping Abilities and Death Attitudes: A Sequential Mixed‐Methods Study

ABSTRACT

Aim

To (1) examine the attitudes of community-dwelling adults towards death and their ability to cope with death, as well as (2) understand the influence of advance care planning on community-dwelling adults' death attitudes and coping with death.

Design

A sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was conducted in Singapore.

Methods

In Phase I, a case–control study was conducted to examine the differences in death attitudes and coping with death ability between community-dwelling adults who have completed advance care planning and those who have not. A univariate general linear model was used to compute the mean difference in death attitudes and coping with death scores. In Phase II, a descriptive qualitative study was conducted to provide an in-depth understanding of the influence of advance care planning among community-dwelling adults. Thematic analysis was used for qualitative analysis. Mixed-methods analysis was conducted to integrate the quantitative and qualitative data.

Results

In Phase I, 80 community-dwelling adults who had completed advance care planning and 81 community-dwelling adults who did not have advance care planning were included. Adults who had completed advance care planning had significantly higher coping with death scores (t = 4.14, p < 0.01). In Phase II, a purposive sample of 24 adults who had completed advance care planning was selected for individual semi-structured interviews. From the thematic analysis, three themes were developed: (1) Advance care planning enables coping with death, (2) overcoming fear of death with advance care planning and (3) confronting death with advance care planning.

Conclusion

Advance care planning may influence death attitudes and coping with death. Further work on longitudinal designs and among individuals from different age groups should be used to gain further in-depth understanding of the impacts of advance care planning.

Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care

Strategies to enhance one's coping abilities with death and death attitudes should be developed to stimulate the uptake of advance care planning.

Reporting Method

This paper was reported according to the Good Reporting of A Mixed Methods Study framework.

Patient or Public Contribution

Community-dwelling adults participated in the survey and interviews.