Advance care planning in discussion: a solution or challenge with pitfalls?

Care planning should define care at the end of life in advance. At a later stage, when patients are no longer able to do this themselves, it should serve as a guideline for health care. The aim of this article is to give a first insight into the discussions around this social instrument.

The study design was comparing the arguments of proponents and critics.

This is a critical discourse analysis.

A discussion of proponents and critics shows how closely this social instrument is interwoven with the areas of biopolitics, economics and governmentality.

Further research should address the question of what quality assurance can look like.