Factors Affected on Deciding to Write a Living Will among End-of-life Patients in the Palliative Clinic

Abstract

This research objectives were to study the relationships among various factors and to identify predictors influencing the intention to write a living will for accepting or refusing medical services among end-of-life patients in palliative care clinics. The study involved 128 patients, selected through simple random sampling. Data were collected using a Likert scale questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.70 to 0.85. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, univariate analysis, and multiple logistic regression.

The research findings indicated that: 1) factors significantly associated with the intention to a write Living Will at the 0.05 level include having a chronic illness, history of intubation, future time perspective, knowledge, attitude, and intention to a write Living Will (OR = 5.89, 3.54, 2.96, 6.53, 26.60, and 15.88, respectively).
 2) Factors predicting changes in the living will include having a chronic illness (DIS), attitude (ATT), and intention (INT), with logistic coefficients of -2.29, -0.60, and -0.60, respectively. These factors explain 63.20% of the variance the intention to write a living will. The predictive equation from row score were as follow: