The Effectiveness of Implementing Advance Care Planning for the Elderly Living in Long-Term Care Facilities: Systematic Review

Purpose: To systematically review evidence concerning about the effectiveness of implementing advance care planning for older people living in long-term care facilities. Design: Systematic review of literature based on Cochrane review criteria. Method: The grey literature and the following electronic databases were searched: MEDLINE, CCTR, CENTRAL, CINAHL, PubMed (OVID), Academic Search Complete (ACP Club), PsycINFO/ PsycATRTICLES (January 1991 to December 2012); Airiti Library (in Chinese) (May 2000 to December 2012). The review chiefly focused on randomized control trails, Quasi-experimental or control group studies. Findings: Two RCTs and one quasi-experimental study were included. The results of this review present weak evidence for the effectiveness of interventions to improve the implementation of ACP in long-term facilities. Conclusion: The effectiveness of interventions to execute ACP for older people living in long-term care facilities presented weak evidence because the components of the interventions were varied and were not documented in sufficient detail to enable assessment, and the theory in the design of interventions also had not be presented enough. For future researches, the theory in the design of interventions as well as the components of the interventions need to be described in detail to maximize the information contained in the research.