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The Knowledge and Attitude Towards Advance Care Planning Among Chinese Patients with Advanced Cancer

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Abstract

To describe the knowledge and attitude of Chinese patients with advanced cancer towards advanced care planning (ACP), a convenience sample of 275 patients with advanced cancer was recruited from a tertiary cancer hospital in Beijing, China, between February and December 2017. The multi-item questionnaire focused on patients’ demographics, disease characteristics and knowledge about and attitude towards ACP and was administered to eligible patients. Descriptive statistics were performed. Most patients had never heard about ACP (82.2%) and had never talked about ACP (83.0%), but only a few (18.3%) were not willing to talk about ACP. A total of 67.8% patients chose to refuse resuscitation attempts or life-sustaining medical interventions, and 70.8% of patients hoped to have surrogate decision makers when they became unconscious. By binary logistic regression analysis, patients who were of greater age, female and living in urban areas preferred to refuse resuscitation attempts or life-sustaining medical interventions (OR = 1.023, P = 0.042; OR = 2.011, P = 0.020; OR = 0.254, P < 0.01); patients who had very rich or rich family economic status preferred to involve surrogate decision makers compared with patients of very poor family economic status (OR = 0.250, P = 0.011). There is a large gap between the knowledge about ACP and the expectation of implementing ACP in Chinese patients with advanced cancer. To develop culturally appropriate and individualized programmes to promote knowledge and implementation in practice of ACP among Chinese patients with advanced cancer and their relatives is still a significant challenge.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully thank all patients for their participation in the survey. This research was supported by the Nursing Research Fund of Peking University Health Science Center [grant number BMU20160516].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Department of Thoracic Oncology I, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China

    Xiao-Ting Hou

  2. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Nursing Administrative Department, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, NO.52 Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100142, People’s Republic of China

    Yu-Han Lu & Hong Yang

  3. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Department of Gastrointestinal Oncology, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China

    Ren-Xiu Guo

  4. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Department of Integrative Medicine & Geriatric Oncology, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China

    Yun Wang

  5. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Interventional Therapy Unit, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China

    Li-Hong Wen

  6. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Department of Radiation Therapy, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China

    Ya-Ru Zhang

  7. Humanities Teaching and Research Section, School of Nursing, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Hong-Yu Sun

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  1. Xiao-Ting Hou
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  2. Yu-Han Lu
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Correspondence to Yu-Han Lu.

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Hou, XT., Lu, YH., Yang, H. et al. The Knowledge and Attitude Towards Advance Care Planning Among Chinese Patients with Advanced Cancer. J Canc Educ 36, 603–610 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-019-01670-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-019-01670-8

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