What Surrogates Understand (and Don't Understand) About Patients' Wishes After Engaging Advance Care Planning: A Qualitative Analysis.

Background: The goal of advance care planning (ACP) is to improve end-of-life decision-making for patients and their spokespersons, but multiple studies have failed to show substantial or consistent benefit from ACP. Understanding how and why ACP under-performs in the setting of complex medical decision-making is key to optimizing current, or designing new, ACP interventions.

Aim: To explore how ACP did or did not contribute to a spokespersons' understanding of patient wishes after engaging in ACP.