[Advance directives in patients with kidney disease or other general medical diagnoses]

After the law on living will was released in 2009 in Germany, an increased use of advance directives was observed. Since patients with kidney diseases are facing the potential or real need for expensive and invasive renal replacement therapy, one could speculate that they will either less or even more frequently state an advance directive than patients with other diseases.

A structured interviewing was performed of all patients on a nephrology ward where also patients with other general medical conditions are treated. The study was approved by our local ethics committee (protocol # 303/08). All admitted patients were successively included who could give signed consent. The investigation was performed between July 2009 and April 2010 by a single interviewer (FD).

Among 505 admitted patients, 211 were included but 11 patients did not consent to the investigation. Of the 200 investigated patients, 121 had a renal diagnosis and 79 other medical diseases. Compared to other European studies, the frequency of advance directives was high (26 %), underlining its clinical relevance. Upon multivariate logistic regression analysis the odds ratio (95 % confidence interval, CI) for the presence of an advance directive was significantly increased only by the age (1.06; CI 1.03-1.09; p = 0.001), but not by the underlying diagnosis (1.47; CI 0.72-2.97; p = 0.287). Significantly more patients did forego resuscitation than did dialysis in their living will (16 vs. 4) while the majority was undecided (36 vs. 47; p = 0.01).

Age was found the more impacting variable than the renal diagnosis on the prevalence of advance directives. Patients with a renal diagnosis should be encouraged to make a statement on dialysis in their living will.