Evaluation of advance directives video education for patients

Patients and families can make informed decisions at the end-of-life if they have had discussions regarding their wishes, but this is not regularly done due to poor understanding of advance directives (AD).

The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of an AD video to educate patients in both the inpatient and outpatient settings.

A prospective, nonrandomized, pre/post-survey design study of 45 patients was conducted. Patients in clinics (n=37) and hospital (n=8) were asked to complete surveys measuring baseline understanding, completion, and discussions of AD prior to viewing the video. Patients viewed the video and completed similar surveys for feedback on the effectiveness of the video education.

Patients felt the video was informative and helpful and stated more of an urgency to complete AD with increased perceived understanding of the forms. Prior to the educational video, 66.7% of patients stated they had discussed AD with their loved ones, while only 29% stated they had discussed these with their provider. Only 44.4% of participants had completed AD forms, and the majority (70.3%) wanted more information. Participants stated that viewing the video increased their desire to complete AD (78.6%), felt they had enough information to have these discussions and complete the forms (97.6%), and rated the video very highly (mean rank of 8.8 of 10).

AD video education is helpful to patients, improving perceived understanding of AD and increasing patients' intent to discuss and complete AD with family and providers.