Centre for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo, Kirkeveien 166 Frederik Holsts hus, 0450, Oslo, Norway. Electronic address: t.j.l.savareid@medisin.uio.no.
To improve patient participation in advance care planning in nursing homes where most patients have some degree of cognitive impairment.
This was a pair-matched cluster randomized clinical trial with eight wards in eight Norwegian nursing homes. We randomized one ward from each of the matched pairs to the intervention group. We included all patients above 70. The primary outcome was prevalence of documented patient participation in end-of-life treatment conversations. The intervention included implementation support using a whole-ward approach where regular staff perform advance care planning and invite all patients and next of kin to participate.
In intervention group wards the patients participated more often in end-of-life treatment conversations (p?