Advance care planning in community dwellers: A constructivist grounded theory study of values, preferences and conflicts:

Background:Most laypeople have not engaged in any advance care planning. Yet they are expected to articulate choices for life-sustaining interventions when they need admission to an acute care hospital in Canada.Aim:To describe how laypeople understand and make decisions for life-sustaining interventions when engaging in advance care planning.Design:Semi-structured interviews using constructivist grounded theory methodology and purposive sampling.Setting:Mid-size Canadian urban communityParticipants:In total, 20 healthy laypeople, 55 years and older, participated in in-depth semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Theoretical sampling was used to explore findings from the first round of interviews. Ten participants were invited for repeat interviews.Results:Four major themes were identified. Most participants claimed at the outset that they had engaged in advance care planning, but they were unfamiliar with contemporary life-sustaining interventions and had not factored these into their decisions. Partic...