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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Planning for death but not serious future illness
— qualitative study of housebound elderly patients | | Author(s) | Joseph A Carrese, Jamie L Mullaney, Ruth R Faden |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 325, no 7356, 20 July 2002 |
| Pages | pp 125-127 |
| Keywords | Housebound ; Attitude ; Acute illness ; Death ; Qualitative Studies ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | A resistance to planning in advance for a hypothetical future - particularly for serious illness when death is possible but not certain - is highlighted in findings from in-depth interviews with 20 chronically ill housebound patients aged over 75 from a care programme for older people in east Baltimore, US. 16 of the participants said that they did not think about the future, or did not in general plan for the future. 19 were particularly reluctant to think about, discuss, or plan for serious future illness. Instead, they described a "one day at a time", "what is to be will be" approach to life, preferring to "cross that bridge" when they got to it. Participants considered end of life matters to be in the hands of God, though 13 participants had made wills and 19 had funeral plans. Although some had completed advance directives (living wills), these were not well understood and were intended for use only when death was near or certain. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020822203 A |
| Classmark | C6: DP: CHA: CW: 3DP: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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