Development and validation of support tools for advance care planning in patients with chronic heart failure.

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) is recommended as part of the management of patients with heart failure (HF).

Aims: To develop and validate ACP support tools for patients with HF.

Methods: An ACP support tool was developed based on a systematic literature review. A multi-center, prospective before and after study was conducted to evaluate the usefulness of the support tool. This study included 21 patients with HF, 11 patients formed the control group and 10 patients were part of the intervention group who received ACP from medical staff using the ACP support tools developed for this study. Participants of the study were surveyed about their experience of ACP using a 6-point Likert scale.

Findings: All of the healthcare professionals (n=9) involved in the study found the ACP tool useful and about 90% of patients considered the support tool useful. The score for 'the patient did not feel anxious about the future after receiving ACP discussion' was significantly higher (3.5 [3.0, 4.0] vs 2.0 [1.0, 3.0]; P=0.04) in the intervention group that used the ACP tool.

Conclusion: ACP support tools are useful to manage patients with HF and could enable effective ACP without increasing patient anxiety.