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Advance care planning and outpatient visits among older adults across cognitive levels
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Advance care planning and outpatient visits among older adults across cognitive levels

Zahra Rahemi, Juanita-Dawne R. Bacsu, Justine S. Sefcik, George Demiris and Swann Arp Adams
Aging and health research, 100166
Oct 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahr.2023.100166
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahr.2023.100166View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0,  Open

Abstract

advance care planning cognitive impairment Health and Retirement Study healthcare use outpatient visits
•Among our participants, having at least one advance care planning measure was significantly associated with a higher mean number of outpatient visits.•It is recommended that healthcare-seeking behaviors and healthcare access be considered as intervening variables in future advance care planning studies. Advance care planning (ACP) can help reduce end-of-life care challenges for persons with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia and their care partners. Building on our previous work, we examined the impact of ACP on outpatient/doctor visits in older adults with dementia/impaired cognition and normal cognition. Using datasets from the 2014 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we conducted a cross-sectional study of 17,698 participants aged 51 years and older. Our analyses included survey descriptive and logistic regression procedures. Our findings indicated that having at least one ACP measure was significantly associated with a higher mean number of outpatient visits in both cognition groups. Based on our findings, we recommend considering healthcare access and use as an intervening variable in future ACP research.

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