The northeast Tennessee Spirituality and End of Life Issues Survey

We developed the northeast Tennessee Spirituality and End of Life Issues Survey and randomly distributed it to 1,000 patients in our internal medicine practice. We received 568 surveys at least partially completed. Most of the participants demonstrated a spiritual interest and at least half believed it appropriate for their physician to share their diagnosis and prognosis with their spiritual leader. Only 0.9% of patients thought it was necessary for their physician to know about their spiritual heritage in order to serve their needs better. Less than 30% of respondents had a living will or durable power of attorney for health care. A large majority of patients did not want CPR (67.8%) or i.v. fluids (69%) or mechanical ventilation (74.5%) if their physician determined they were at the end of their life. This was true whether or not they could identify a house of worship or a spiritual leader. Less than one-third of patients who did not want terminal CPR or mechanical ventilation had a living will or durable power of attorney for health care.