Facilitating advance care planning in the thriving retirement village setting

To investigate the factors that influence the adoption of advance care planning (ACP) in the retirement village setting.

Purposive sampling was used to recruit residents and staff from a retirement village in a regional town in Victoria, Australia. Data collected in semistructured interviews were analysed through a process of reflexive thematic analysis and coded in NVivo.

Twenty participants, comprising 14 residents and six staff, participated in the study. Four main themes arose, relating to awareness of the ACP process, the logistics of ACP, the role of service providers in facilitating ACP, and trust in the process. Most residents were unaware of the ACP process, but thought the transition into a retirement village was a good time to prepare instructions. Being given information on ACP was appropriate, but participants agreed that staff should not be involved in the actual ACP process. Finally, concerns were raised about the extent to which participants could trust that their wishes would be followed.

Viewed along a continuum of care, the retirement village setting is an appropriate point at which to inform and support the ACP process, particularly for providers offering incremental support in response to changing client needs. These findings add to the relatively limited literature on ACP in this setting and could inform the development of strategies and resources to support residents in the ACP process. In so doing, they support best practice for facilitating ACP across care settings.