Facilitating Advance Care Planning Discussions for People With Advanced Cancer

Patients with advanced cancer have not fully benefited from advance care planning due to the high levels of anxiety and depression experienced and other barriers that affect their appraisals and coping. Despite the protective effects of resilience, there have been few clinical trials improving the resilience skills of patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers to help initiate advance care planning discussions and sustain engagement. This research will provide new insights through using a dyadic intervention approach to advance care planning while developing and evaluating a web-based resilience-building intervention to improve the completion of advance directives, resilience, coping, anxiety, and depression for patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers.

Inclusion criteria

• Patients will be eligible for the study if they (1) are ≥ 18 years of age; (2) have a cancer diagnosis; (3) are able to read and respond to questions in English with minimal assistance from family caregivers for interpretation; (4) have previously completed an advance directive such as a living will; (5) have a family caregiver who serves as a surrogate in the advance directive and is willing to participate in the study; and (6) have access to the internet on a cell phone, laptop, or computer.
• Family caregivers will be eligible if they (1) are ≥ 18 years of age; (2) are able to read and respond to questions in English with minimal assistance from others for interpretation; (3) are identified by the patient as a family caregiver who serves as a surrogate for health care decisions; and (4) have access to the internet on a cell phone, laptop, or computer.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients who have cognitive impairment per a Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire score < 8.