Health Care Providers' Attitudes and Practices Regarding the use of Advance Directives in a Military Health Care Setting

摘要

This research study examined health care providers' attitudes and practices on the purpose and use of advance directives in a military health care setting. This research modified a study conducted by the End Of Life Study Group from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. The literature has attributed low completion rates of advance directives to health care providers' erroneous beliefs that these documents are mainly for the terminally ill and elderly. Additionally, inadequate health care provider training and skills about advance directives have been cited for low completion rates. Family nurse practitioners (FNPs), in both civilian and military settings, receive training on ethical and moral implications of advanced nursing practice. These characteristics make the FNP an ideal candidate for promoting the purpose and use of advance directives. In this study, health care providers assigned to a midsized Air Force Base completed a modified research End-of-Life Study Group instrument. The End-of-Life Study Group instrument was modified to include demographic data and military terminology. Supporting evidence of the content validity was obtained via a review of the instrument by two experts. A content validity index on the modified instrument, rating the instrument of 1.0, indicating that the items were relevant to the study. The study consisted of 61 subjects. Data analysis utilized relative frequency scales and percentages. The results of the study revealed that health care providers in a military health care setting held the same attitudes and practice standards as their civilian counterparts. They believed that counseling should occur with any and all patients, yet limited their actual counseling to seriously, chronically, or terminally ill patients.