Empowering elderly Chinese Americans: Advance care planning educational workshop

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Public Health
• Health Disparities

Background:

• Advance care planning (ACP) is crucial for end-of-life (EOL) care alignment with patient values.
• Elderly Chinese Americans exhibit significantly lower advance directive (AD) completion rates compared to national averages.
• Addressing cultural barriers is essential for improving EOL care planning in minority populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance ACP engagement and AD completion rates among elderly Chinese Americans.
• To implement and evaluate a quality improvement project using culturally tailored educational workshops.
• To address disparities in EOL care planning within the Chinese American community.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement project guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior and PDSA cycles.
• Conducted three monthly, culturally tailored educational workshops for elderly Chinese Americans.
• Utilized a pre-, post-, and one-month follow-up ACP Engagement Survey to assess attitudes and readiness for AD completion.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a statistically significant increase in ACP engagement scores over time (p < 0.001).
• Observed a substantial 220% rise in advance directive (AD) completion rates post-intervention.
• Indicated a positive correlation between culturally tailored education and improved ACP outcomes.

Conclusions:

• Culturally tailored educational workshops are effective in improving ACP engagement and AD completion rates.
• This intervention successfully addressed barriers faced by elderly Chinese Americans in EOL care planning.
• Findings support the scalability of culturally sensitive interventions to reduce health disparities in ACP.